Where Others Fail, Prevail
by Servant of SHEVAL
Summary: Holy fails. Meteor hits. The Planet is dying, and after the surviving members of Avalanche count their casualties, they come up a body short. Where's Vincent, and how many more secrets does the Planet have left to hide? Character death, DOC spoilers.
1. Ch 1

The lifestream came bursting out of the earth, the swirl of green met with the glossy blue of Holy's shield. As the Highwind rose into the air, it seemed all the world was aglow… the shield flashed, and strengthened, but could not hold meteor back. The destruction continued over Midgar, and all the while Cloud's mind was on only one thing: Vincent and Yuffie.

The two had been sent by Cait Sith to help evacuate the doomed city… he only hoped that they had gotten out in time, but that possibility was looking bleak.

Avalanche stood dumbfounded on the decks of the Highwind. How could this be happening? How could they have failed? Even now, the will of Aeris was succumbing to the will of Jenova, and the lifestream was receding away from the stain of impure black that was spreading from meteor.

The Highwind hovered close enough to watch the terrible destruction, but far enough away not to be consumed by it. Through the galeforce winds, a mighty roar was let loose from behind them, and six heads, human and animalian alike turned around to see what was coming. Two glinting figures, red and green, shot like missiles through the air.

"Emerald and Ruby!" Tifa exclaimed as the weapons careened by, sending the Highwind's wings wobbling dangerously in their wake. Compensating for the blow, Cid lowered the ship towards the ground…

"Marlene!" Barret yelled, and once again everyone turned around in time to see the hulking creatures crash haphazardly through the quaint little town of Kalm on their way to Midgar. They sent entire buildings flying as they skimmed the earth… All of a sudden the man leapt over the rail to the ground a short distance below, and ran off full-tilt through the dark.

"Barret, no!" Tifa screamed, but he was already gone.

"They're stopping meteor!" Cait Sith cried, bouncing up and down and pointing into the distance as the two shining dots swooped up towards the red fire in the sky.

The explosion of the collision at last knocked the battered airship to the ground, and its white-hot shockwave seared over the earth, burning grass and trees, and snapping mountains in half like they were made of soft chocolate. Ruby and Emerald had done nothing…

-

When Cloud opened his eyes, he saw only bodies littered among the wreckage. With a pained groan, he lifted his heavy head off the ground, and gingerly touched his swollen face with a hand. Bringing it up to his eyes, he noticed the fingers bent in funny directions, and only just realized the pain that was coming from them. It was when his thumb chanced to stroke the bridge of his nose that he realized _that_ was broken too. He must look awful right now…

But first thing was first, he carefully lay his crushed hand flat as he could on the ground, and with the uninjured other, firmly pressed down. The result was many cracks and crunches, and the eventual straightening of his crooked fingers, though not without an agonized cry of pain, which, try though he might, the swordsman could not stifle.

"Cloud?" cried weakly from somewhere nearby.

"Tifa!" the response came on instinct. He glanced urgently around and simultaneously checked the rest of himself over, very relieved to find nothing much worse than forming bruises. In an attempt to break his fall, he supposed, he'd landed on, and crushed the hand, and probably smashed his face into the floor. "Where are you?" he called again.

"Under the support beams." she gasped, "I can't move…"

The blonde slowly staggered to his feet, and ran over, following the sound of her voice, "Oh Ifrit, Tifa…" he murmured upon sight of her quite-obviously dislocated knee.

"That bad?" she smiled weakly.

"No… no it's fine." the boy grunted, bracing his good hand and a shoulder under the bent metal of the beam, and just barely pulling it up, "Can you crawl out from underneath?" he asked, the question more a request. She would have to... it was the only way, and he was already holding up the heavy supports.

"I think so…" she gingerly turned around, her gloved hands gripped ahold of the man's boot. She pulled along the ground until she was out of the way enough that Cloud could put his load back down. "Where's everybody else?" she managed, looking up.

Cloud merely shook his head, "I don't kno-"

"Hey, Spiky! You alive?" came a gruff call. Cloud couldn't help but smirk.

"Yeah, I'm here." He replied, turning around to see Cid jogging up towards him. Once the pilot reached the man, one arm shot out to rest on the remnants of the ship's hull, and he practically doubled over to suck in breath.

"You allright?" Tifa squeaked from below, and Cid glanced down and nodded.

"Yeah. Smashed up my ribs pretty good." he explained, "And sprained my wrist." he held up his other hand.

"Same." said Cloud, looking down at his own, "Plus broken fingers."

"And a broken nose." The pilot wryly pointed out, "But before we start comparing battlescars," he glanced nervously around, as if afraid that he might see something unsettling, as if the broken remains of his beloved airship weren't enough. "Where is everyone?"

"Barret hopped ship…" Tifa murmured.

"What about Vin and Yuff?" he asked.

She shook her head, "Haven't shown up yet. I don't think they know where we are…"

"Has anyone seen Nanaki?" Cloud quietly whispered, also looking around.

"I am right here." came a raspy voice, and the wolf came limping over. A long gash had torn down his muscled side, and sharp bits of shrapnel stuck out of his front left paw. "The Cait Sith robot was destroyed." He reported.

"Reeve." Cloud breathed, "Where was he?"

"Kalm… he probably didn't…" Tifa sadly answered, and trailed off to look tearfully up at them all.

Cloud was silent, and at last knelt down beside Nanaki, pulling the metal from the creature's leg, eliciting a growl from his throat.

"Thank you, Cloud." he humbly muttered nonetheless.

"We're going to find them." Cloud said determinedly, his hand slowly rising to grip the hilt of his sword.

"We are in _no_ condition to be going anywhere right now!" came Cid's protest.

"What else can we do?" Cloud snapped back. He was the leader! They were supposed to listen to him, "The Highwind looks like it got stepped on by Bahamut, and haven't you noticed how the night wind is warm?" he looked fiercely between them all, "That's the mako radiation from Midgar, no doubt." He pointed to the hazy green glow on the horizon, flooding the sky from the deep wound in the earth, the energy of meteor, and the lifestream, and the ruined reactors of the city. "Every second we stay here, every second our friends are left stranded over there, we're both being poisoned, slowly dying!"

"So you suggest we go _closer_? They're not children, Cloud… well, Yuffie is, but she's got Vin to guard her. They're smart, they'll make it out fine."

"We don't know that!"

"Why don't we just call them?"

They both looked down at Tifa, who already had a PHS to her ear.

A few minutes passed in silence, and there was no response from the other side. She tried it twice more, and still nothing, then she looked down, "I can't get through…"

"Highwind, if you and Cloud can run, I will carry Tifa on my back." Nanaki offered, "Kalm is not far, we will check on Barret, Marlene, and Reeve, then proceed towards Midgar for Yuffie and Vincent."

They all looked between one another for a moment, before Cloud nodded, "Allright, Tifa, I'll help you…"

The two clutched arms, and moved with only a slight moan of pain from the woman, before she was situated lightly on top of the wolf.

"Let's go."

-

Kalm was a ghost town. The old-style buildings stood crumbling and blackened from the shockwave and the weapons' blind onslaught. Barret's dead body lay splayed out on the ground not halfway to the town, burned from the force of meteor's hit. They didn't even have time to mourn before continuing onwards… any second wasted was a second that someone else might die… though with the damage done to the man, farther away from the blast than anyone in the town, hope was slim.

No sign of Reeve or Marlene was evident once they got there, though the buildings were difficult to navigate between, now that they were nothing more than vague outlines of foundations. They went to what they thought was the house where Marlene, Elmyra, and Reeve were told to stay, and found, like they found everything else in the town, shattered pieces of nothing larger than the palm of Cloud's hand. They didn't have to go far out after that to see what had happened to Yuffie and Vincent.

The flyer they'd been sent off with lay crumpled like a can on the ground, and the young ninja's body was still beside it. Blood streaked down her paler-than-normal face, and her torso looked flatter than usual, caved in on itself. Despite this, though, she had been neatly and carefully laid out on the ground, her hands folded over her chest as if in prayer, as if there had been someone there to move her. As if there were a survivor. But Vincent was nowhere to be seen.

---

**Author's Ending Note Thingy: **It seems like my Latin class gives me so many good fanfic ideas… XD anyway, I thought this would be a fun version of the world to work with. Apocalypses are always awesome. Unfortunately, however, this fic will not be updated again until after I have finished playing DOC… and with my workload from school this year, that might actually be quite a while. Oh well, wish me luck!


	2. Ch 2

"I don't understand…" Cloud said frustratedly, lightly punching the hard soil beneath himself with a single fist. It had been hours since they'd tragically found the dead bodies of their friends… in the meantime, they had gathered up Barret and Yuffie, and brought them into the town.

The survivors of the group took up shelter inside the building they supposed to be the one where Reeve, Elmyra, and Marlene had lived out thier last moments, and laid out the bodies in the middle of the floor, before casting a weak fire spell, and at last doing away with them. It was all that was left to be done… there was no time, or energy among the weary group to give proper burials, so they supposed it was best to reduce the two to the ash the other three already had become.

Now they sat, in a mock-reflection of the way they had around the Cosmo Candle, circled around the smoldering heap that was all that remained.

Tifa, tired and pain-stricken, had gone to sleep with light tears streaking clean lines down her smokestained and dirtied cheeks. Cid had removed himself from the rest, and settled down in a far corner. The signal that he'd fallen asleep was the red glowing tip of his cigarette first sagging, then falling softly to the ground, before drifting away on the dry wind.

"What is it, Cloud?" Nanaki asked, his bright tail swishing back and forth marginally, casting an orange light haphazardly around a small radius from where he sat.

"It's been…" he looked up to the clouded sky, mentally calculating, "…It has to have been three, four hours. My wounds should be healed by now…" he looked down to his crushed hand, tried to flex the fingers, and winced. "The plus side of being Soldier is that whatever crap they do to us, at least we heal from it fast in the end, but…" he looked up to meet the creature's single yellow eye. "…strange as it sounds, these are actually minor wounds." he reached up to touch the wet current of blood still trickling out of his nose. "They should be completely gone."

The creature bowed its head to the ground contemplatively, then gave a slight nod, beads clacking together as he looked up again. "Yes. I feel it too…"

Cloud blinked, wary understanding dawning on his face, "…feel… what?" he pressed, fearing the worst, fearing Nanaki meant what he had already thought. The creature was wiser than he seemed, and the swordsman didn't doubt any of whatever he would say to him.

"The lifestream…"

Only two words out and Cloud had already leaned his head back and closed his eyes in helpless frustration. This could only go from bad to worse.

Nanaki's mouth twitched in a bitter smirk, pulling black lips back over sharp fangs, but nevertheless continued, despite the silent agreement they'd already come to about their situation, "It's… it has been disturbed. No doubt, such devastation as meteor has caused something to happen to the flow. A wound this deep…" he glanced off toward Midgar before quietly finishing, "…may not ever heal."

"The Northern Continent still bears the scar of the first impact on the planet." Cloud remarked quietly, also turning his gaze in the direction of the destroyed metropolis.

"Yes, but that happened eons and eons ago." Nanaki said, "Back when the Ancients still walked the earth. Their power, no doubt, though waning from Jenova's influence, was what was able to save the planet then. I cannot think of what could save it now."

"The last Ancient is dead." Cloud said grimly, and Nanaki nodded his head.

"Yes."

-

…

Why…?

Why now?

What was happening? And how did he stop it?

Vincent lay, body meekly pressed up against the cold metal outer wall of the city, the only piece of it that was left, clinging feebly to its roots at the rim of the crater. The misshapen metal had been remoulded by the heat of the impact, into a dripping, almost surreal form, but the gunman paid no attention to any of that…

At the moment, he was curled up beneath this overhanging metal scrap, his hands gripping so tightly to his upper-arms that his flesh-fingers turned white, and his claw-fingers drew blood… His teeth were clashed together in the horrible effort, his eyelids determinedly squeezed shut, though that didn't hold back the glow…

Illuminated from behind the thin veil of white skin, a fiery gold blazed out from his irises… one that he was already far too familiar with.

Every moment he struggled to hold the force back, he could feel himself becoming both mentally and physically weaker. He distantly was aware of the loud clangs that echoed out among the howling breeze, his thrashing legs and head as his body convulsed, trying, _trying_ to _keep him in!_

While inside Chaos clawed and roared, screaming something unintelligible to a human ear, but perfectly clear in the mind of the beast's holder. That didn't mean, of course, that he could understand it… all of his consciousness distracted and directed into keeping the terrible force caged within himself, he could make no sense currently out of all the beast's talk of 'destiny', and 'purpose of creation'… something about 'inevitability', and the choice to 'end the struggle'. Though his arguments sounded quite tempting…

_"It could all go away."_ the maddened creature tried to reason, _"It could all end. You could just leave, see them again, all the ones you couldn't save."_

Now he was taunting once more, and Vincent disgustedly turned his face away, as if that would take the frightening image of what he was about to become out of his vision.

_"This suffering… this immortality… leave it behind. You've never wanted it. Give it to me!"_ and now he was becoming more insistent. All the more reason for Vincent to resist.

_"Curse you, you pathetic shell!"_ it roared ferociously, "_Curse you for denying me! Curse you for your stubbornness, it will not last you long!"_ but the beast, thankfully, was already receding back into the depths of his consciousness. _"You cannot stop it this time! You cannot do this alone, it is meant to be!"_

Suppressed once more, Vincent let himself simply melt into the ground… or that was what it felt like. His limp arms fell back to his sides, and the rest of his heavy limbs sagged, and stayed like deadweights, into the soil. He didn't doubt the possibility of never being able to lift them again. His strength had failed. The pain of holding back Chaos slowly began to subside, but it was already the second time this night that the creature had struck out at him. He couldn't keep him back again... but at the moment, he likewise couldn't do anything but succumb to silent sleep.

-

Morning came… or did it? The color of the sky had hardly changed. A washed out sun, no doubt tainted from all the debris, dared to touch the upper surface of the dusty clouds, turning them a slightly paler shade of stone grey. Above Midgar, lightning was crackling up in the air, bright streaks tearing through the dark.

"Hold still." Cloud ordered firmly, holding a glowing green orb in his right hand, his left still gingerly kept behind himself.

Cid winced, and groaned slightly, leaning back on his palms as the swordsman pressed the cold jewel up against his broken ribs. "Ya know, half the point of magic is that it doesn't have to hurt."

Cloud eyed him warningly for a moment, then closed his eyes and concentrated on the spell. Tifa still slept, and he was unwilling to wake her, but he had already used the Cure materia on Nanaki, effectively patching up his shredded paw, and slightly knitting together the gash on his side. Then the beast had assured him that he was healed enough for the moment to go on without danger, and that Cloud should not waste any more of his energy in using the materia on him. So the swordsman had gone to Cid, only just opening his eyes as that exchange had drawn to a close. Little did he know that his own energy was the least of their problems.

"What the hell…?" Cid said quietly breaking Cloud out of his momentary thoughts.

The swordsman looked up, blue eyes meeting blue. "What?" Nothing had gone wrong with the spell…as usual, he'd felt the gentle wave of warmth pass through him, lighting him up from the inside with a strange heat. The pure glow, the green sparkle, and then…

Cid nodded, and motioned down toward the materia still clasped in the other man's hand. It had ceased to glow, and the spell was fast fading away, though by the easier breathing of the airship pilot, Cloud could see that it had, at least, healed him.

Pulling his hand away, he turned it palm-up, and opened his fingers from around the little gem he clasped. His eyes went wide, and he softly mimicked Cid's "What the hell…"

Where before a smooth, hard sphere had been, shimmering with a green luster, now only a cracked and shriveled mass remained, black and crumbling, soft like ashes. Another gust of wind blew, and like sand in a gale, the dark material was lifted away.

---

**Author's Ending Note Thingy: **Ooh, excitement. I've always liked this story-concept of mine, despite the fact that I have no idea where I'm going with it… but it's got good review-response so far… so I'm hoping to suck a few more people in with this update. I've FINALLY finished Dirge of Cerberus, literally less than an hour ago. The first thing I did upon doing this was come here and write this next chapter, now that I know what happens, I can work with it. Yay! Please review!


	3. Ch 3

"The lifestream replentishes the energy stores of materia just as it replentishes us." Nanaki explained once Tifa awoke and had been filled in on the situation. "Right now, keeping its materia charged is not the planet's primary concern. Therefore, it is likely that they will continue to fade into dust with excessive use."

"What if they never recharge?" Tifa asked softly.

"All of them are just gonna... disappear?" grumped Cid.

Nanaki nodded, "That is possible. Cloud has already related this theory to our injuries. At the moment, not only has the materia been neglected, but the planet also seems to be diverting the flow of the stream even from us."

The Soldier looked up at the mention of his name. Tifa's watery brown eyes were watching him concernedly, and so he looked away again. Now was not the time... he'd been lost in his thoughts, gently massaging his wounded hand.

With a sigh, and his gaze cast upwards at the clashing heavens, he flexed his fingers painfully again. In truth, he hadn't relayed everything to Nanaki. The full story he had to give included information specific to himself. It did not hurt to keep private things a secret, and so he'd just go on not telling them, so Tifa wouldn't have to worry. He appreciated the affection, but not the theatrics.

The feeling in his body was strange: a tingling, directed like water draining from a sink, into the areas where the tingling wasn't... which was a paradox in itself, but to Cloud it made sense. Specifically where he could feel it was in the flesh under the bloodied glove. Since last night, the shattered bones had slowly started repairing themselves, and he could imagine how...

..._The plus side of being Soldier is that whatever crap they do to us, at least we heal from it fast in the end_ he had said just last night. Every ShinRa member received at least a low level dose of mako into their system. It was that surplus of precious energy that the planet unwittingly kept up within their bodies that allowed them the traits associated with Soldier: speed, strength, rapid healing. But now that the planet wasn't doing the healing itself, the mako wasn't being helped along, and the usual boost it added to natural self-repair was working double-time all on its own to get the job done.

Which made Cloud wonder some more... everyone else, everyone here, his eyes scanned them, everyone _normal_ was unhealing because the natural amount of lifestream harbored within a body was only enough to sustain them as they were. With Cloud's extra, he could see in the dark, he was fast, he could heal, though slowly... but he was walking a downhill path. It wouldn't be long now before he ran out of batteries, and then what?

He'd been nothing without the mako... _nothing_ without Hojo's hideous and twisted experiments, just a weak little boy who wanted to be a hero. Well, now he was a hero, thanks to the ShinRa science department, and their little miracle treatment! But now the treatment was wearing off, so what next? Would he be just as useless as before? Then how could he lead his friends through the impending... end?

"Cloud?" came Tifa's quiet voice, bursting through his thought process. He shook his head swiftly, blonde spikes bobbing around everywhere, then looked at her pointedly.

"Huh?"

Cid just about snapped, "Damnit, we're dying here!" he yelled, "'naki's got a cut so huge on his side that his guts are very nearly spillin' out, and Tif's leg is still mangled. How's she supposed to walk?" he demanded of the silent leader.

"Thankyou for that image." Tifa said sullenly, giving the pilot a warning stare as she carefully maneuvered her foot. "Don't worry about me, Cloud." she said with a minute smile.

"And don't take this wrong..." Cloud began, looking over them all with a frown, "...but it's not any of you I'm worried about."

-

Vincent awoke to a surprising sensation. Comfort. Eyes flashing, blinking as he tried to focus while looking around, take in his environment, make sense of it.

"Shh, shh..." came a soothing voice, and gentle hands were laid on either side of his head, holding it back to the pillow, "...rest now, you need it."

"Where am I?" his hoarse throat cracked to talk. He felt dried blood on the back of his tongue, and disgustedly swallowed it.

"Safe." said the voice again.

He wasn't playing games here. Grunting involuntarily as he pulled his weak body up, Vincent located the face to which belonged the sound: a thin, but youthful boy, messy brunette locks falling all about his shoulders. He wore, by all appearances, what appeared to be a muzzle, and regarded Vincent curiously with eerily similar crimson eyes.

"Where am I really?" he demanded, hand quivering for his gun, but finding it not there in the holster as it should have been...

"You should really continue to lay down..." the man said, turning away to go examine some sort of machine off to the side. His back turned to the gunman revealed elegantly furled metallic wings... just the bone structure with a meanly curved knife at every tip, and boredly tapping claws at the very top. "...that was quite a difficult struggle you had with Chaos earlier. Took alot out of you. Nearly killed you, your mortal body, at least." The boy smiled... and he could tell he did so, despite the strap of white leather across his mouth, because of the crinkle in his eyes.

For the first time in a long time, Vincent found himself completely at a lack of anything to say. Silence on his part did not always mean there were no words to contribute... though that was exactly the case now, and the boy seemed amused by this, as he chuckled in his pleasant little voice.

"How do you know about Chaos?" Vincent asked slowly, at last.

"I was watching you." the man said, as if this would explain everything.

The gunman opened his mouth to elaborate on the question, but no noise even came out, so he slowly closed it and looked down at himself. Immediately he found his voice, and with a gasp, demanded, "What have you done to me?!" His dark eyes were fixed on the bluish tubes that curled around the bed where he lay, and descended into his skin... the glowing liquid which they carried flaring with an odd heat through his bloodstream, starkly illuminating his veins against pale flesh on a bare arm.

The boy smirked. "It's for your own good." he assured, "Really, I've no intention to hurt you..." he drew over with a graceful step to a wall, sporting row upon row, shelf upon shelf of similar bluish canisters. "Mako." he explained breathily, "Some of the last, I imagine, not being eaten up by the greedy planet." he frowned, and that Vincent could tell too by the way his eyes narrowed.

The winged man turned around, holding up one of the blue glowing containers like a prize that he was showing off to his guest. "It put Chaos back to rest. Fed the materia you carry within." at the blank look he was being given, he restated, "The beast was thirsting." he said, "I merely gave it a drink." the glimmer of a smile.

"Where _am_ I?" Vincent demanded, his hands shaking. He slowly stood by the side of the bed, feeling the demanding dug of the tube in his arm, and wincing because of it. His stance was weak. He could feel his knees already wobbling from the effort to stand up, and his bare feet felt cold against the hard floor, "And who, in the name of the Ancients, are you?"

With a slow dramatic movement, the metal wings extended to their full length, effectively increasing the size and impending nature of the admittedly diminutive figure of the dark angel. "My name is Nero." he said, "And this is Deepground."

---

**Author's Ending Note Thingy:** So Cid's nicknames... haha, wild, eh? It's getting pretty thick here on the lifestream philosophy… I'm such a geek to have already thought it all out.

Yaaay, another chapter! Finally! I got inspiration again (at 1:00 at night when the next day I have school. Doesn't my muse have just wonderful timing?) and it feels so good to update. Please review, if I have any readers still left that haven't abandoned this story just like I did. It's not done yet! There's a whole plot full of twists, and I still don't know where it's going yet. See you next time!


	4. Ch 4

There was still hope for Vincent, Cloud and Tifa decided... though Cid had recently resigned himself to such a morbid attitude that he only shook his head and lit up every time one of the two mentioned the possibility of finding him.

"You're going to run out of those, you know." Tifa said to him, still riding on top of Nanaki. There had been an extensive argument before they left that morning over whether it was worth possibly losing another precious cure materia to heal Tifa's leg. She insisted it wasn't. Nanaki sided with her, and offered himself as transport yet again. Cloud thought otherwise, and eventually Cid, the neutral force in the argument for quite a long time, had been forced to pry the little green ball (the last one they had) from the swordsman's fingers. "And then what? Where are you going to get more?"

Cid calmly reached into the side pocket of his jacket, and pulled out another slightly crushed, but full packet. Tifa sighed and muttered something under her breath.

"What was that, hon?" he demanded gruffly.

"I said 'kill yourself faster, why don't you'?" she growled, "If the mako radiation doesn't give you cancer, those will."

Cid's mouth twisted into a characteristic frown, and he rounded on the girl to reply when Cloud held out a hand, blocking him.

"Focus." the blonde leader ordered with a hard stare.

Cid gazed cooly down at him, matching the look and meeting his eyes for a moment, before his expression dulled, and he squinted to look closer... but Cloud had already turned away and faced the road again.

"We'll be in Midgar soon."

-

Nero had left... and Vincent was weary. Despite this strange... blue variety of mako the man had given him, the strains of surviving world destruction were certainly being felt by his old body. He was nowhere near sure he trusted the man... but the treatment seemed to be working, he felt the faint warmth coursing through his system, the tingling sensation that meant he was starting to heal, and not a peep out of Chaos.

But since when did Chaos like mako?

And since when did anyone know about him?

_And_ since when was there enough mako just lying around for one to be able to randomly bestow it upon any stranger?

But... one thing at a time. The until-recently incredibly pressing issue of Chaos was being fixed, Shiva only knew how, and Vincent wasn't complaining. When he was... himself again, then he would look more closely into this 'Deepground' business. He'd never heard of it before... but now, half-drunk on lifestream, was certainly not the time.

He sighed to himself, and lay back... the process was just tiring... the mako felt like it collected and pooled in his chest, and with every heartbeat came surging a wave of sleep the likes of which he hadn't felt since the day he closed his eyes to rest in the coffin of ShinRa manor. He only hoped this story wouldn't end the same.

-

The road to Midgar was dark and grueling. A relatively short trip from Kalm, which they would have easily crossed in almost no time before, was compromised by many new obstacles and circumstances that made it seem like a hundred miles instead of only about ten.

The landscape was devastated... ash-covered and desolate. The very surface of the ground was rippled from the impact and the heat, huge gashes had been raked into the soil. Deep crevasses and hidden faultlines had opened up, stabbing deep into the earth, belching steam and occasionally a spurt of green lifestream that had wriggled up from down below, and beyond all this they _still_ couldn't see that shining metal underworld of Midgar anywhere on the horizon. If there was a hell that existed outside of the Northern Crater, Cloud decided that this was it.

He'd also decided something else... namely that he was in a shitheap of trouble. His hand had healed up, but how would he explain that to everyone? Cid would, of course, jump to the conclusion that he'd sneaked the use of a cure materia, and throw a fit. Tifa would assume that too, but probably not have such a violent reaction. Despite desperately not wanting to have to deal with that, it was Nanaki that made Cloud the most worried...

...the beast was more likely than anyone to remember the little detail constantly plaguing the swordsman's mind - a Soldier's mako. Nanaki would be most likely to recognize the effects, would be rational-minded enough to realize that the Cure materia had not been used up, and would generally be more observant and thus bothersome as such.

So what did he do, make like his hand _hadn't_ healed up? Precisely. Cloud was quite bitter about having to go around and pretend like all of fingers were still immobile... it made many things even more difficult than when he had the pain there to remind him they shouldn't be moved.

So therein lay the tale of how one of the calmer members of what was left of the Avalanche group came to be in an absolutely horrible temper late that evening. Things only got worse from there.

"What do we eat?" Tifa said. Nobody had even noticed their hunger at first... with all the adrenaline pumping in their systems and other worries taking their minds off of such mundane things, they had overlooked the small detail of food. "Everything we had was left on the Highwind... and I doubt there's much, if any of that left."

"Not to mention she went down past Kalm, and it took us the whole damn day to get _here _from just the town anyway. There's no way to get to the ship and back in any kind of good time." Cid grumped, and, as expected, lit up again. If nothing else, it suppressed the hunger.

Tifa sighed and rolled her eyes at the sight, resting her chin in her palm.

"We can't send someone alone..." Cid continued, smoke rising out past his lips with every word.

"...and we can't go out all together..." said Tifa, waving the dark vapors away, "...because by the time we get back, Vincent-"

"Will you give that stiff a rest, Tif?" Cid said bitingly, his eyes sharp and dangerous enough so that the girl flinched back as if hurt.

"We are _not_ giving up on him." Cloud cut in, thoroughly fed up with this argument. "We're not abandoning a potential survivor to die out there in Midgar." he said with a wild motion to the horizon, "And if you don't like it, Cid, you can take yourself down to your beloved airship, and start trying to build her back up and fly away, because Red, Tifa and me," he gave an emphatic jab of his thumb at each respective person, "are not going to leave behind our friend."

"Doesn't sound like a bad idea!" the pilot spat, scrambling to his feet, "I'll fly her back here and drop you all a sandwich or something on my way past, how does that sound?!"

"No one is leaving!" Tifa yelled, her fist slamming into the ground with a puff of dust. The two silenced immediately after the small outburst, and she let out a sigh, and rubbed her temples softly, "We very well might be..." the girl began, voice quiet, "...some of the only people left alive on this continent..." her face was somber, and it brought Cloud and Cid easily back into perspective after their petty dispute. "...we need to stick together, we're no use to one another off on our own." she finished.

"Then how the hell are we gonna eat? Nobody's had a decent meal since the dinner before we went into the Northern Crater, and that was three days ago, Tif." Cid mentioned, straining to keep his voice... gentle.

"I'll go out." Cloud offered, standing with his sword. At Cid's quizzical look, he explained, "Things were alot tighter before we met you and got the Bronco... it was six people piled into a little buggy, and not enough gil to go around and pay for meals and rooms at the inns. Sometimes we had to hunt for our food..." he grinned with bitter amusement at the look on Cid's face, "You'd be surprised, alot of the monsters out in the wild make pretty good eating."

The pilot looked quite unsettled by this, and tugged at the front of his shirt, sitting back down, muttering something about how he 'wasn't really hungry anyway'.

"Shove it." Tifa said, still a little hotly, "You'll eat what you can, because we're not letting you starve."

Cid grumbled some more, and took a long drag, long enough to burn the rest of the thin cigarette up to the filter, and tossed it away.

"I will go with you." Nanaki spoke up, silent and contemplative up until now. Cloud glanced down at him nervously, but the beast reiterated, "I mean, I will also go out to hunt. I am experienced..." he said, and the blonde leader didn't doubt it "...two people searching are better than one."

"Don't go far." Tifa said, "There's... probably not much left to find... but... if you're having alot of trouble, just come back in, it's fine." she made it sound like sustenance was not a necessary component of human survival. Cloud smiled... Tifa had a tendancy to convince herself that things were always absolutely fine. 'Don't worry' he almost expected to one day hear her say, 'My leg's still attached by _two_ threads of skin!'

He and the firetailed creature parted ways from the group, and Cloud at long last heaved a sigh of relief, flexing his underused fingers gratefully. It was good to be away from the scrutinizing eyes of his companions... Tifa, he figured, didn't know anything. She was too busy fending off an impending Cid-related migraine, and probably worrying about her own grave leg wounds. Cid, however... apart from his growing impossibility, had certainly glimpsed something Cloud didn't want him to earlier that morning.

If things went... like he hoped they would - which they seldom did - the pilot had already forgotten what he'd seen in the passing glance, but staring at his reflection in the blade of his sword, Cloud now found how startlingly apparent it was. The glow in his eyes, normally bright enough to illuminate a dark room like moonlight, had faded significantly, and with it had gone his vision. In the gathering twilight, he could hardly make out the shape of the ground ten feet away, and that wasn't the only thing...

...his sword felt heavier. The huge, hulking weapon was normally a fairly light weight for him to lift, but now... Cloud's worst fears were being realized.

_It's the mako that makes you._ he remembered once hearing... in fact, the memory, the _voice_ accompanied with it was so strong, that he looked up from where he'd been examining his eyes in the blade of his weapon, and stared around. But it couldn't be... no way... Zack? No...

...but he heard something else, now that he really listened. A soft sound above the howling wind, and that was strange enough. He'd thought it futile to go looking for something to eat out here. How would they cook it when they didn't have enough power left in their fire materia to cast it more than once or twice?

What was it, though? He drew closer to the source of the sound... or at least to where he thought was the source of the sound. In all honesty, it seemed all the world like... crying? But... _We very well might be some of the only people left alive on this continent._ according to Tifa, and yet... Cloud thought he'd just found a child!

Indeed, as he rounded a particular rock formation, there he saw it... squinting in the dark, he could make out a shadowwy figure, no larger than a boy the age of thirteen or fourteen. Light hair spilled over past his ears and hid his face, shoulders shook slightly with each sob.

This was positively surreal. Cloud reached out, laying a hand on the rock face for support as he leaned forward and gently called, "Hello?"

Startled, the boy jumped up to his feet, and turned around, facing Cloud.

The blonde held up his hands immediately, strategically placing the huge sword behind him where it couldn't be seen, "Don't worry!" he assured, "I'm not going to hurt you..."

The striking emerald eyes that gazed out at him, strangely highlighted in the darkness, suddenly widened, and the boy they belonged to stumbled forward. Cloud watched in silence as the slender, trembling frame pulled itself over to him, and stared upward from his feet.

His confusion was staggeringly doubled with the parting of the boy's lips, and as he said in a quavering tone, "...Niisan?"

---

**Author's Ending Note Thingy:** ZOMG, I'm so mean... I'm completely in love with cliffhangers. DAMN this chapter was hard to write... it didn't help that my computer died once and I lost about half of it. I'm gonna need to edit before I post, I finished this at like 2 in the morning. But I'm glad to get it done, it's been too long since my last update, I'm feeling guilty. XP Hope you like, again, thanks for sticking with me.

Oh, and I hereby credit the line 'It's the mako that makes you' to lilnee and her fanfic 'Mission Abject'. In my opinion, it's one of the most well-written fics on the site, I'm not exaggerating.


	5. Ch 5

It wasn't long before Tifa decided to stop bothering to count the minutes since Cloud and Red had left. Namely due to the diversion caused by a fresh throb of pain to her legs with each heartbeat: a much more regular and reliable means of keeping time than her warped perception of seconds.

With a wince, she reached down as if to massage them... but even that wouldn't soothe the sting away. Touching only hurt. Tifa sighed and looked up to the tar-thick cloudcover. The closer to Midgar they got, the blacker the sky, and she doubted it was because the sun was setting... in fact, it was impossible, by now, to determine if it was dark or daylight. Moments bled together so that she couldn't devise the first from the next.

She glanced at Cid, who seemed to have taken up a watch while sitting on the slight dropoff they had stopped for now by. His legs hung out of view off the side, and his dim cigarette butt provided the only illumination, since Nanaki and his glowing tailtip were gone.

Tifa sighed... the air was thick and dry and tasted of charcoal... she found it hard to breathe, and dizzying. Between the pain, the travel, and the sleep-inducing fumes that no-doubt tainted the wind, she felt exhausted... She knew there was no point in waiting for dinner: it wasn't coming.

With an air of defeat about her, the warrior lay down, inched and untangled her legs as much as she could without crying out from the pain, and stretched her arms out beside her. She lay her head on them, a thick, dark mess of brown hair on the pale expanses of skin. _What if I never get back up?_ she thought morbidly, _What if I just lay here... and don't get up again, and don't try to fight the future to save the world. What if I just-_ the train of thought came to a sudden wreck before the word 'die', and with a shuddering exhalation she swallowed and shook her head. She wouldn't do it... not without a fight. Never without a fight, but...

...looking down at her mangled legs... Tifa doubted there was much fight left in her. Her head found its restingplace once again on the makeshift pillow as she whispered, "Ancients, help us..."

-

"Ask and you shall receive." came a chiming voice, clear and pure like Wutaian wind bells. Light. And warm. Two things Tifa felt like she had not experienced in eternity. She looked up blearily again, blinking in the brilliant white. The stillness pressed down featherlight, and the warmth wound through and around her like threads of silk. She was sitting on soft ground, the light prickle of grass teasing bare skin. This was not the devastated road to Midgar... she didn't know where she was... but she knew that voice...

Tifa gasped, and her head whipped around to see.

Across a small expanse of clumpy grass, dotted thickly with snowwy white and sunny yellow flowers, stood a girl in a pink dress. Her chestnut hair tumbled down in waves from a loose pink bow. A familiar smile graced her rosy lips, and compassion danced like a field of stars in her emerald eyes.

"Aeris..." she breathed disbelievingly, reaching out.

The girl giggled and gave a nod, but came no closer, instead sitting down on the opposite side of the flowers, and said nothing.

"What? How?" Tifa stammered, letting her arm drop back to her side.

"You're dreaming." Aeris provided with a smile.

"Oh..." Tifa's spirits fell, and her shoulders slumped, "That's encouraging."

"But I'm there..." came the flowegirl's ever-placid tone. "Don't worry, Tifa, we're all watching over you."

She looked back up again, "We?"

Aeris didn't answer, "There's... not much we can do anymore..." she started with a sigh, though her demeanor was still calm. "...the planet's dying."

The warrior's gaze fell and landed among the lush leaves at that news. _So beautiful..._ she thought, taking in the pure pigmentation, _And so real._ reaching out toward an aphid that crawled up the petals of one of the lilies. She only half-listened to Aeris as she spoke, instead plucking the insect from the velveteen plant, and flicking it off her thumb with her forefinger. _Will it all die?_

The small green speck of the bug seemed to recover itself midair, and frantically buzzing its little wings, made the flight across the distance to land on Aeris' outstretched finger. The girl looked down at it with soft eyes... then fisted her hand and crushed it. Tifa flinched.

Aeris produced a weak, pearly smile again, "Parasites..." the girl relented. "...sucking the life out of things, out of Gaia."

"Jenova?" Tifa seemed dumbfounded, "She's still alive?"

Aeris looked up, appearing confused, as if this fact were obvious, "She never died." the girl eased over the information to the distraught fighter.

"So now what?" she demanded hopelessly.

"First thing's first." Aeris breathed, dusting off her grass-stained lap and sitting up. She made her way carefully over to Tifa, stopping as she sat within arm's reach in front of her. "You're lucky... being friends with an Ancient." she smiled slyly, and reached out for her friend's bloody legs.

Tifa felt her entire body instinctively stiffen as the hand drew near, and she sucked in a sharp breath at the light pressure of the flowergirl's hand making contact. A deliciously searing sensation washed over her body, and her eyes drifted closed briefly as the feeling of healing fire took over...

"There..." came the Cetra's soothing voice, "...all patched up."

Eyes open again, Tifa examined her newly-healed legs, agape. "Aeris..." she breathed.

Meeting the gaze of her friend again, she let herself trail off... the girl already appeared... visibly weaker, the usual sprightly stance sagging slightly, the gaiety of her eyes somewhat dulled. "Aeris... are you allright?"

"No, no..." she waved her off with a carefree laugh, "I'm fine. You worry about yourselves and... and Cloud, okay?" the small grin was unconvincing. Tifa didn't want to see it... but found she could not move her eyes... they were locked onto those of her friend. The world began to fade... if such a brilliant purity was capable of fading. Somewhere in the dark bowels of Tifa's pessimistic mind, she knew it was. Soon all that was left was the soft green eyes and the final ringing reminder of _If you ever need anything, call to me, I'll be here for as long as I can..._

-

Tifa's eyes opened again, and she woke with a start in the familiar darkness. Off in the distance, she heard the wind howling over the hills between here and Midgar again. The warmness in the air around her was no longer soft, but acrid and consumptive, yet she shivered. _Just a dream..._

She began to lay back down, repositioning herself, moving her legs...

...moving her legs…

With a stifled gasp she sat bolt upright, looking wildly down at herself, at her perfectly sculpted, muscular legs, unmarred. Not even a scar of the former injury remained. She looked up, dismayed, meeting eyes with Cid, just realizing that he'd likewise been staring at the miracle healing. The man's cigarette sagged between his lips as he slowly drew his eyes up to meet Tifa's, "What...?" he stopped off.

"Ask and you shall receive." she muttered, repeating the Ancient's first words. "Aeris..."

"That girl..." Cid said in amazement, again looking down, "...how?"

Tifa smiled, surprised at herself, even... here, now... she was actually, genuinely smiling. "I don't know." she laughed, "But I saw her, and she helped." came the soft completion.

A gentle and awestruck silence wove itself between the two for a few moments. Far, far off gales were buffeting the dark horizon, and all things good and magical, such as Aeris was, were draining from the world. They knew it, but disregarded it. For the moment, for the first time since the death of Sephiroth, something had gone right. They took the chance to savor it.

At last, though, Cid sat back and straightened the slim paper roll in his mouth by propping it up between gloved fingers. After a quick drag, and soft breath of smoke, he gently suggested, "Tif, you still look tired. Maybe you should get back to sleep."

Dumbly, she nodded, and lay back down as she had before, taking the new opportunity to move her legs freely. "Are Cloud and Red back yet?" she inquired, her voice already slurred tiredly.

"Not yet, hon." Cid crooned, his voice distinctly nearer than it had been before. "But they will be. Don'cha worry yer little self, just go to sleep."

"Mmm..." she conceded, her body yeilding to the sudden warmth that she supposed was Cid dragging his jacket over her. It was nice... fleecy on the inside, and wrapped her up easily into less tangible dreams.

Cid straightened, giving the girl's remarkably empty legs another once over before looking away in the direction that Cloud had earlier left, and sighing. He'd long since gotten used to it before... but for some reason the rising smoke from his cigarette stung his eyes again today. He growled softly in his throat, and reached up, wiping the moisture they created away.

_Damnit._ he thought, _What the hell's the point?_ the pilot glanced, out of the corner of his now-clear eye, at the little glowing tip. Determinedly, he tore it out of his mouth and threw it away to extinguish completely by the third bounce.

---

**Author's Ending Note Thingy:** Doesn't this fic just sound like one big anti-smoking commercial or something? XD Haha... I hope not. Anyway... I'm back (again), whoo! OK, as I'm sure some of my reviewers already know, here's the full story:

The last time I got to writing this was over Spring Break... I wrote a chapter ahead back then with the intent of posting it sometime between when break ended and Summer began, because that's an awful long time for you guys to wait... (this fic updates slowly anyway, but... I feel bad about it. XP) ...anyway, as you can see, that wasn't the case. Why? The chapter I wrote was on my computer, and stupidly not backed up, when my computer died and I lost all the data. I also lost two chapters of my other fic 'Mon Coeur Continuera'... and it's taken me all this time just to rewrite this one here... that one's gonna take a little longer, but... yeah, either way I'm back on my feet.

Wish me luck. Hope you like the update! There'll be another soon... summer means free time, and I've got a ton of ideas all coming up real quick here. Toodles, please review!


	6. Ch 6

Cloud was breathless... it was like looking at a photograph, the resemblance was so uncanny... Admittedly, it was like looking at a fifteen or sixteen-year-old photograph, like catching a glimpse of _Sephiroth_ in his youth. The boy with the silver hair... _nobody_ had silver hair but him... and those acid green eyes. It almost made the swordsman want to shudder. "What did you just call me...?" he demanded in a hiss.

"Niisan!" the boy instantly provided, almost smiling... he would have if it were not for his hopeless desperation. He sat straighter, up on his knees and clung around Cloud's middle, black-leather-gloved hands clutching feverishly to the ribbed dark blue uniform of Soldier that the other still wore. "Niisan, you... have to help me..." he rocked back onto his heels looking up through strikingly familiar, and at the same time completely foreign eyes. Sephiroth's eyes were _always_ cold and hard as glacial ice... this boy's... they were vivid and dancing like emerald fire. Alive, strangely human, though he himself was not, no doubt. Completely unlike his similar.

Cloud found himself, because of this difference, strangely trusting of the newcomer. "Help you with what?" he asked, a little more calmly, his voice far more controlled. "What's wrong?" though despite his perhaps irrational sympathy for this child, he couldn't help the sneaking suspicion, the nagging feeling in his gut. Brother, he called him?

He whined, and held on so hard that Cloud could feel fingernails digging into his skin through two layers of leather and cloth. The boy's voice broke as he talked, and in an utterly mournful tone, said "They're killing mother!"

-

For the first hour or so, Nanaki had managed to convince himself that he was merely seeing things. After that he could deny it no longer, could not continue to attribute the growing and thickening haze and wisps of pale floating past to tricks of the eye. He wondered whether to blame his sharper, animalian senses... wondered that, had he been accompanied by, say, Cid, if the pilot too would have seen it.

And it wasn't hard to guess what was going on, especially after the originally formless apparitions solidified. The flow of the lifestream had been, perhaps, irreparably disturbed, gushing out of the earth here and there. He just never expected any of those random diffusions to _take form_. Specters... the shades of the dead were walking the earth.

He didn't recognize any... the beast just tread along slowly, his paws light on the fine covering of powder and ash that rested over the entire landscape, and they floated up... ghostly green-white. Casualties of meteor, ShinRa Soldiers, men, women, and children alike rising in his midst, sometimes showing recognition, giving a smile or a nod of reassurance. It was surreal beyond belief, and he still didn't know what to make of it.

These were either the rare, odd soul that the lifestream did not dissipate, or those who had died just recently. The Planet was not likely to still be able to process the dead into the vital spirit energy it needed. It was too wounded for that, couldn't function properly.

So after the long hours of Nanaki's musings, figuring these mysteries out, he at last stopped his aimless trek and just watched. A single yellow eye beheld flocks of ethereal forms gliding off together across the ruined hills and fields, all smiling, all silent. Some bore the wings of angels, residual mako energy they had dragged out of the earth with them.

Growling to clear his bestial throat, the proud animal straightened up and called out. "Where are you going?"

A couple heads turned and looked back, those that could stand to concern themselves, in death, with the whims of the living. They said nothing, but smiled weakly, sadly, or gave a look of pity that briefly glimmered in empty eyes, before turning back to their path.

"Answer me!" he called out, more desperate this time, "Enough! Why are you leaving the Planet? Why?" why? At the time most dire...

_"Forgive us, Nanaki..."_

That voice! On instinct, the creature spun around, his claws skidding in the tractionless earth. "Father!"

Regal, wise, and proud Seto came striding up, right out of the very rock embedded in the ground, his expression mild and bordering on sad. _"Nanaki... son..."_

"Father..." with pup-like whimpering, Nanaki scampered forward to meet his parent, not noticing as the shade recoiled instants before he passed right through...

...disoriented, facing solid rock, and having lost sight of his father, Nanaki's head whipped around with the clack of beads, and he hissed at the pain of the unhealing gash in his side. It was small, a mere slice out of his fur and skin, but it was still agitated, and possibly infected, and he tried not to think of that at a time like this. At last realizing what he had done, and turning around, he faced the retreating back of the spectral creature. "Father!" he called, bounding to catch up, "Wait...!" he breathed, walking up beside him.

_"Calm yourself, little one..."_ the animal purred, looking fondly at his son, _"...you must forgive me, all of us... we cannot help it, the way we leave."_ and again he looked on ahead at the vast pilgrimage of dead spirits wandering the valley before Midgar, all circling in, it seemed... like water that was drawn to a drain.

"But why?" he hissed, "Father, I don't understand..." Nanaki shook his head with the clack of beads and the light sprinkling of tears against the dry ground, "...where are you all going?"

Seto sighed. _"I myself do not know. We are called."_ he simply said.

"Like Reunion?" Nanaki gasped, to which his father gave him an odd expression of confusion. "No." the younger quickly corrected, "No, not like that. But then..." he raised his head, not at all oblivious to the spirits' eventual destination. Vincent was there... last they knew, at least. "...Midgar..." he breathed. "...what's in Midgar?"

_"I do not know-"_

"I'm coming with you!" the animal pleaded, his sudden idea.

_"No!"_ Seto barked, his focus shifting from where it had drifted slightly off to the road that seemed to preoccupy most of the spirits, and pinpointing firmly at his son while he rounded to face him. _"You must not!"_

"Why?" Nanaki demanded, "Father, please... I... I have a friend there!"

_"No!"_ the larger, elder emphasized. _"It is not yet your time. Do not rush the end!"_

"End..." he whimpered, shaking his head and blinking more moisture out of his eyes and onto his fur. The crowd was dispersing... or perhaps that wasn't the right word. He saw it coming up ahead, could spend a long time dreading it during this slow march. Nanaki didn't know if it was just a random flux along the lifestream that would pass or move on in time, or if the spirits with him were strong enough only to hold their forms for so long... because just as with the start of this phenomena, the bodies were slowly becoming unrecognizable, breaking down from their distinct forms to return into mingling mist. "Father, quick. Please. What do you mean 'end'? The end of the world? So meteor has hit and Jenova has won?"

_"No, nothing like that!"_ the animal almost snapped, though his voice was muffled and distant. _"You said before. Not like reunion. This is not Jenova's doing."_

"Then who?"

He didn't respond... at least not immediately, and, terrified, the beast could see his parent's familiar outlines smoothing and blurring, becoming fuzzier around the edges.

"Who?"

Seto's gaze was drifting and faded, his attention seemed to have wandered, or perhaps what part of his soul encompassed consciousness had already fled from the still-walking image. That too, just remnants, further filtered off, eroding like sand-dunes in the wind.

"Father, who?!"

But his voice echoed hollowly among the crags and upturned earth. His father was gone, as were the other 'ghosts' he supposed he could call them. Nanaki was left all but alone in the dark, with the last remnants of the troop processing slowly past and crumbling into nothingness mere inches ahead of where he currently stood. There was nothing left to show they'd ever even been here, no footprints or tracks, no residual light - it _all_ went away as soon as it hit the spot where the animal was standing, perhaps gone back into the earth. He had only the faint scent of mako to help him pick his way back to where he'd first stopped watching where he was going, and from there... the grueling and sorrowful walk back to camp.

---

**Author's Ending Note Thingy:** I have a small concern I'd like to voice... my updates for all my fics are always small, I guess I just don't really have it in me to write very long chapters... but looking at this fic, I'm at 5 chapters and haven't broken 10,000 total words, and that somewhat disturbs me... is anyone else a little put off by the chapter lengths (or lack thereof), and wants me to make them longer? If I get enough response to this, I could... the fact that the chapters are short doesn't mean that the fic will be, it just means there'll be more chapters, but I feel guilty because of how seldom this thing updates, and how short the updates are when they come. Okay, yeah, well... that's it. Please reply with your opinion or something. XP


	7. Ch 7

Morning came, maybe, and Cloud had yet to return. Cid was perched, still, on the dropoff-edge, his head nodding down so that his stubbly chin nearly touched his chest, his faded blonde hair ruffled by the wind. The pilot was drifting in and out of awareness of his environment, the passage of time all but indistinguishable to him. He hadn't enough motivation, yet, to get up and face the blackened day, and so made no attempt to keep track of it or his companions.

As for them, though, Tifa was still sound, and happily asleep beneath Cid's warm jacket, completely unaware, and all the better for it. Nanaki had only just returned within the hour, a change of scenery hardly noted by the half-asleep Cid, and managed to fall into a fitful slumber with dark stains streaking the tearlines of his animalian face. Cloud was nowhere to be found.

-

It was like death all over again. As the days (weeks? hours?) went by, Vincent found it more and more uncomfortable to lose consciousness. He couldn't quite bring himself to call it sleep. The constant influx of the blue mako into his system kept him perpetually drowsy, though at the same time, somehow emboldened, strong. He didn't know how to describe it, and it was this paradox that kept him hinging as to whether his captor's intent was malicious or not. As he'd thought before, it wasn't everyday you met a straight-jacket-clad, muzzle-wearing, metal-winged man in a mysterious underground cavern who was kind enough to lend you his incredibly large supply of bizarre mako during Gaia's apocalypse.

It was this, and something else that Vincent sought to make sense of. The snatches of conversation he thought he might have heard during sleep, the terrible dreams of waking. Everything was backward, and he wasn't sure anymore what was real. The only difference between this and Hojo's lab was that here, he was... comfortable, and treated with a completely strange and uncalled for degree of respect.

_Soul wrought from terra corrupt..._

...what the hell was that supposed to mean? Something he'd heard repeated, followed by other lines that made less and less sense until at last he couldn't remember what came next, to finish the verse anymore. Waking one morning (he supposed), the gunman turned weary eyes on the thin figure of Nero, who was at the moment standing beside him, monitoring various beeping screens.

"Omega." he said. One word, and it had already caught the other man's uninterrupted attention. A tensing of the back, intake of the breath, narrowing of the eyes, pursing of the lips beneath the muzzle. Even a tired ex-Turk could read bodylanguage like it was a child's book. "What is it?" he continued his politely curious interrogation. "And terra corrupt?"

For a long time Nero didn't answer, his eyes gliding slowly over the metal contours of the machines, drifting to the mako, and then back to Vincent, glancing over his shoulder without turning around. "Omega will save the planet." he replied coolly, "You know the terrors that rage on aboveground." the man turned back around, going back to his inspections. Everything seemed to be functioning correctly... going according to plan... and yet...

"...and terra corrupt..." Vincent groggily prodded. Already 'sleep' was taking him again, but he was determined to get his answer.

Nero was silent for another agonizingly stretched-out moment. Then, at last, as Vincent already felt his eyelids sliding closed like curtains over his vision, the answer came drifting over what seemed an endless expanse to his ears. "...is you."

-

Asleep again. That was why Nero saw it safe to voice the truth. The man blew his bangs out of his eyes with a heavy sigh. He could _not_ figure out why... Valentine was being isolated, practically controlled, he hardly seemed to be aware of himself anymore, and on top of that, was being literally _pumped_ with more g-substance than even his altered system should have been able to handle. The only reason he was able to keep absorbing it was because of Chaos' presence within him, and the Weapon should have been, by now, a veritable force with power levels akin to Omega itself because of the insurge - the overdose... yet why would it not arise? No matter what the man tried to do, what modifications to the process he made...

How could Vincent be so strong? He was a pathetic individual, a broken man, weary and beaten, barely clinging to life, here, within Deepground... and still somehow found the determination to resist that which he didn't even know was happening. Was Chaos even _putting_ up a fight?

And the sleep. Why the sleep? There was simply _no_ explanation for that. All the deviations from what should have been a norm were driving the man crazy. He thundered across the grated metal ground toward the far chamber. Had he not been doing everything to exact specifications? And still failure! What more was there to be done? Even Omega had not yet awakened, as he should have. The lifestream was concentrating itself in Midgar now, yes, but that was not enough. This continent was beyond repair, but the others were still left relatively intact, as far as he knew. They could wait it out, until all of the energy _within_ the planet had drained away, wait for all the people to die one by one, but that would take _too long_. It was so much easier to just let _Chaos_ do it, as he was supposed to! It was meant to be, it was _destined, fated_ to happen and it would not!

With a shriek of slicing metal, the blades of Nero's wings crashed into the door as he passed it, and its top half wavered on a weak hinge, then fell to the ground with a loud crash, and even that did not wake the gunman. Why? Why was nothing going according to plan? Even the overall timing was off, _especially_ the overall timing was off. They hadn't planned to undergo this stage of the process for at least another three years. Curse that Jenova and her greed, summoning meteor to destroy the planet prematurely when the planet already had all it needed to destroy itself.

"You won't change things that way." said a droll, monotone voice from the darkened room beyond the severed door.

"I didn't ask for your input, Shelke."

The girl sighed and closed her azure eyes, sinking back into her chair again. She too was hooked up to an ample supply of blue mako (g-substance) just like Vincent, only the transition between its tubing and her skin melded together flawlessly. "You need to control your anger, Nero." she supplied, "The consequences of failing to do so will not be beneficial to anyone... especially your brother."

Darkness was swirling around the man, a mist of pure, opaque black and occasional glimmers of corrupted blue, and his scarlet eyes were cold. "I suppose what I meant to say, then, was _be quiet_." he snapped, "You are nothing but a nuisance to me, now that the network of souls has been disturbed, and your SND has been rendered useless." he spat. "I don't know why I keep _feeding_ you." he contemptuously, almost hungrily eyed the tank of g-substance that Shelke was hooked up to.

The girl's peach lips pursed into the faintest semblance of a sneering smile. "Perhaps it is because you have not yet given up hope for the lifestream to restore itself to working order."

"Hardly that." Nero growled, approaching the fallen door and bending to pick it up. "Though hypothetically, such a recovery _may_ set our original schedule back on track, I fear that both Deepground and the rest of the planet" he directed his gaze briefly back toward Vincent, "have already suffered too great a loss to go on as they had before, and we would merely have to forge ahead with the strength of the humans aboveground restored. Such a change would only hinder our cause now."

For this, Shelke had no answer, and turned her eyes back to face forward at the blank wall across from her in the narrow chamber. She again tested the shackles on her ankles and wrists. They were an unnecessary precaution on Nero's part... she wouldn't hurt him. He'd forgotten that they were working toward the same goal, though the girl felt no distress at his mistake. She also wouldn't run away. She had nothing - no one to run to, and needed the g-substance supply that only Deepground had to offer.

"Also..." the man continued, lifting the massive metal doorway up in his arms with apparent ease, "...I think you're holding out on me." his brows furrowed and his eyes flared with dark intensity. "Not telling me something, withholding some knowledge that I believe would be intrical to my work if I only knew it."

Shelke's eyes darted imperceptibly over to Vincent, but her lips stayed closed.

Frustrated, Nero jammed the door back into place without another word, and spun on the spot, striding swiftly away across the lab.

The girl inside was once again enclosed in darkness, broken only by the eerie blue light of the g-substance container. She sighed.

Another light flickered into existence before her - an occurrence she'd since gotten used to - an ethereal form taking human shape. _"Not long now..."_ she said in a weak voice, _"...just hold out a little longer."_ the woman had a greenish hue, not unlike the ghostly shades that occasionally walked the land outside. Shelke had seen them, briefly, during her last unsuccessful SND, and related this woman's situation to theirs, though, of course, in this case it was far more complicated than just that. Shelke honestly didn't know if the apparition was a figment of her own fragmented thoughts, a spurt of the lifestream, a manifestation of already-processed electric energy, or some bizarre conglomeration of these things... but whatever it was, it had an agenda that the Tsviet currently saw no detriment in conceding to.

The woman went on, repeating _"Not long now..."_ and looked up almost fondly to the darkened ceiling above, as if trying to see through it to the ground outside_. "...they are coming, Vincent can endure, and remember..."_ her striking eyes were back on Shelke again, _"...don't tell the professor."_

Shelke swallowed, sighed, and nodded. The woman's eyes crinkled with sympathetic thanks, and in little more than a whisper, she breathed, _"I'm so sorry."_ and faded into the dark.

---

**Author's Ending Note Thingy: **Woot for burst of inspiration. Okay, the general consensus that I have been receiving is for longer chapter length (was that redundant? XP). This one... doesn't really give you that, but I figured I made up for it at least a little because of how close this update is to the last one. Lame excuse, I know... but whatever. Pay no attention to any of the Synaptic Net Dive stuff, it never made sense to me in the game anyway... with any luck, it won't become all that important in this story, but as I've said many times before: with this fic, even I can't tell what's gonna happen from one chapter to the next. So yeah, hope you liked... leave a review, and see you next time!


	8. Ch 8

"Mother..." Cloud repeated dumbly, feeling as if his very bones had just grown cold, swooning, shaken to his very core. "...did you just say..."

_Yes, child... show your obligation to the family. Prove your loyalty._ the thoughts, the discerned - yet not physically spoken - words, the sinister voice rang out like a bell of ice in his mind, and the swordsman groaned with the terrible memory, whirling around briefly just to check that she was not, in fact, there...

"Your mother..." he rounded on the boy, grasping him roughly by the shoulders, unthinking, wild with fear. "Your _mother_...!" he roared, shoving him up against a nearby boulder. He whimpered with the pressure and squeezed his eyes shut from Cloud's onslaught. "What was her name?" he demanded, "Your mother, who was she? Who was she?!"

"I-I..." the boy stammered, crystalline tears leaking out of his eyes and rolling down his smooth cheeks, "...I don't know her name..."

"Who are you?" the swordsman asked.

"My name is Kadaj..."

"And who was _she_?" he tried again, coupling the question with another mighty shove against unmoving stone. Cloud's grip then relinquished and he stepped back, faltered, tripped, and sunk to his knees. "Who was your mother? Who? Just tell me, just _tell_ me..." he begged. His breaths came in large wet gulps, quicker and quicker and quicker, hyperventilating.

It couldn't be. It _couldn't_ be. Jenova was dead, done, vanquished, gone and never to return. They had defeated her. They _had_ to. All of this could not have possibly been for nothing!

But, no.

That wasn't it. Now he remembered...

_...it's the mako that makes you..._ from earlier... that was... something from somewhere. He didn't know. Someone had said to him once. Twice? The same hallucinatory experience twice within an hour. He was just hearing things - just hearing things. That was all. He desperately tried to calm himself as 'Kadaj' slid, blubbering, down the rock face onto the dusty ground beside Cloud. He raised stubby glove-clad fingers to his overflowing eyelids for a second, and pressed the palms of his hands to his face, completely drowning out the already muffled and strained sounds of his crying amidst the roar of the wind.

_Obligation to the family..._ Cloud wondered, _...and he did call me brother. Why... why? Why does he think..._ but the swordsman's face had already softened into an expression of apology. He straightened up and crawled over to the hysterical fourteen(-or-so)-year-old, reaching out and laying a sympathetic hand awkwardly on the other boy's shoulder. "Hey..." he tried adding a consoling tone to his voice, and it didn't seem to mesh well. He searched for a while, but could find no words, and so just sighed, once more - and more quietly - asking "Who's your mother?"

Kadaj looked up, his lips parted slightly as if about to answer, though, for a prolonged moment, no sound came out. Then...

_"I am."_ breathed a feminine voice from behind, somehow more rooted and material than the prior echoing one had been. So much so, in fact, that it made Kadaj jump and Cloud immediately turn around...

The blinding aura of blue light around her was fading to a more tolerable level, and from within it she seemed to be taking shape, developing slowly like a picture out of a camera, or an embryo within an egg. Yet she never did reach full solidity... there were still lines of static and faded areas. The woman standing before them both was a little rough around the edges, and though she was but a specter of her former self, there was delight in her fragile smile and warmth in her maple eyes, and she laughed and whispered _"My son..."_

-

"We have to go after him." Tifa begged, standing, for the first time in days on her newly healed feet. "It's been a whole night and he hasn't come back. Something _must've_ happened. We _have_ to go after him!"

Cid sighed and shook his head, reclining, still, on the overhang, perfectly content to let Tifa tower over him and shout. "He said to wait here for him to get back, so I'm stayin' put. You should do the same."

Tifa, who was still wearing Cid's jacket from when he'd draped it on her like a blanket last night, pursed her lips and snarled, "You haven't exactly been proactive recently, Cid." Her hands were balled into fists - though a common gesture of anger, not one to be taken lightly when coming from Tifa - and she was practically standing on her toes from anxiety.

Nanaki was watching silently from the sidelines with only half-interest. He was still shaken from the encounter with the spectral image of his father last night, and had no real opinion to present. When Cloud had been gone before, Tifa had taken command... but when they found him again not long after that, Cid had been the appointed leader. Without Cloud, again, it was a power struggle between the two.

The animal winced. To think like that applied some kind of permanency to the idea of Cloud being gone. He'd only left to scout for food, for the Ancients' sakes... and it wasn't like there was anything left out there to harm him. He'd probably gone too far and was still in the process of coming back... or gotten overzealous and continued searching... or perhaps even fallen asleep out there. Nanaki sighed and tried to keep these three possibilities orbiting around his strained mind as he continued listening to the drone of the argument in the background.

"Proactive, Tifa?" Cid shot right back, sounding uncharacteristically hurt, "You tell me what the hell there's left to do?!" and with painful, clumsy slowness he pushed himself to his feet. His age was showing... not that thirty-two was considered aged, but life had been hard on Cid Highwind, that much had been obvious even before this whole mess, and it had certainly not gotten any better, with his ship destroyed, half his friends dead or missing, the planet on the brink of destruction, and broken ribs to boot. At last he made it to his feet, standing over the girl at his superior height. "What do you _want_ to do? We can't all go out looking for him, like some kind of wild goose chase. Suppose he comes back here and finds us gone, then what? No one else should go out alone, _or_ be left alone behind, and there's only three of us left! We can't afford to be splitting up anymore!"

"But-"

"Damnit, no buts!" Cid's voice had risen and his eyes looked positively fiery in the dark light, and in the absence of Cloud's own glowing irises. "Just because you got your skinny little legs patched up in some miracle healing last night, does not allow you to go gallivanting off after spikehead like you're his guardian angel or something! He's got Aeris for that." the moment he said it, the pilot desperately wished he could take the words back and seal them behind his lips. His quick attempted addition of "He's got all of u-" ended abruptly with Tifa throwing the jacket down, spinning on her heel, and walking off.

She didn't go far... only past Nanaki before she sat down again, drew her knees to her chest and bowed her head, facing away from the two of them. Cid watched her back with widened eyes. The look on her face before she'd turned... the shock, the utter dismay at those harsh words, and the hurt and betrayal kindled there. He shook his head. He hadn't meant for that. Nanaki raised his furry chin up off his paws and sent the pilot a pointed look.

_I know, I know..._ Cid thought in response, carefully clambering back into this seat on the cliff-edge, _...I took it too far. Again. The last thing we need to do right now is split up, in any way._

-

There the woman stood, in all her frail glory, smiling proudly at the trembling and confused figure of Kadaj. Her look of gentle happiness soon faded as her image flickered a few times. Once, twice... and each time it returned, its light was dimmer, more fuzzy. Cloud and the boy just stared on in wonder at the sight.

_"I'm so sorry..."_ she said with sincere regret, _"...I can't stay long. I just... I just wanted to look at you. Never in all my life did I see..."_ she shook her head, and the very action seemed to send the light into convulsions, as the surface rippled and parted, beginning to static out.

"Wait!" Cloud called, sick of the mystery. He stepped forward as if to reach out to her, but refrained. "Who _are_ you?"

The image came back, fuller and strong, and the woman slowly tilted her head upward to look at him and smiled. _"I am Lucrecia."_

The name stung a spot in Cloud's memory, and a swell of... something came with it. He'd heard the name before. He'd heard it from... "Vincent."

She smiled again. _"Yes. That's right. I suppose he's told you of me?"_ her words were light, breathy... hopeful.

The swordsman honestly could not recall any specifics... and doubted Vincent had even divulged them, but he remembered what was important... and that alone sparked a whole flurry of ideas so faint and fleeting that it made his head spin to try and retain each one while this was occurring. He grabbed onto one and held it like a lifeline, dazedly asking, "Have you seen him?"

_"Vincent?"_ Lucrecia asked, tilting her head to one side, where it promptly became eaten halfway by shadow, a surreal effect seeing one twinkling brown eye staring out perfectly clearly, and the other utterly nonexistent in some manner of borderline drawn straight across her nose. _"No, I haven't seen him in a long time..."_ she sighed, and with her breath Cloud's hopes plummeted to the floor.

_"But I do know..."_ the rest of her figure slowly began fading, along with the half of her head, and her voice warped, becoming more difficult to discern. She struggled to get her message across, Cloud could tell. _"...do know..."_ she repeated, _"...where he is..."_

Instinct and excitement made the swordsman practically jump up and run to her. He drew closer, holding his arms out as if somehow grasping them could more thoroughly anchor her here. "Where is he? Lucrecia, where is he?" Cloud begged. There was hope, however slim, that his friend was alive.

...but she was already gone. He wasn't sure quite when it happened, or how - what went first, the exact moment that Lucrecia fully disappeared. He was only aware, after the fact, that he was alone in the darkness - that they were alone. The - albeit, unnatural - light she brought with her had faded, the green-blue glow was gone, and all that was left was the monotone grey bulb of the sun. Her sweet voice and the somehow charming crackles of static that accompanied her had likewise dimmed away, overshadowed by the hissing of the wind, and Kadaj's occasional thick gasp, the squeak of leather as his shoulders arced up and down.

---

**Author's Ending Note Thingy:** So... it's not exactly the longer length I promised... although I think I did do a teensy bit better than normal. The update time isn't exactly desirable either... BUT! There is good news! I have a plot! I've been saying all along that I had no idea where this story was going to go or how it was going to end, but I've finally figured it out (part of the reason for the delay). So now that there's a set direction, I hope things will fall together more often and make more sense. There's still wiggle room in my grand plans. I just hope I don't disappoint anyone with my ideas. Taa-taa 'til next update, with any luck it should be pretty soon, but hey... don't I say that every time?


	9. Ch 9

It was getting light out, Cloud just now noticed. He'd lost track of the time... at this rate it was unlikely that he'd get back to 'camp' before anyone else had arisen, which would certainly be a cause for worry for Tifa, if not also for the others there as well. But there were more complicated issues involved in returning than just doing that...

...his mako levels were still ebbing away, he could practically feel it. Drop by drop he got weaker and weaker the more his wounds healed - and they did so slowly, but the fact that they did so at all, now, was the problem. Then there was Kadaj... who appeared, in a sense, to be a sort of reincarnation of Sephiroth. Definitely not a good thing.

Cloud realized he shouldn't jump to conclusions... but between 'mother' (meaning Jenova), Lucrecia - birthmother of the Soldier General himself - calling him her son, and the incredibly uncanny resemblance... it really wasn't _that_ big of a leap.

Perhaps, Cloud thought, he should just kill him now.

But the kid (and it - he - _was_ just a kid) looked so innocent... so... young and helpless as he stood there, crying. He'd called Cloud 'brother', and that instant allusion to a familial bond seemed to wipe out any logic, common sense, gut instinct, whatever that Cloud had against trusting him or taking him in... because what else could he do? Abandon him here? At the very least, his rational mind justified, he could bring him along to keep an eye on him.

But that didn't account for how the others might react.

Tifa, Cloud thought, would just be happy to see him alive. Cid, he feared, might explode and run the poor boy through the middle with a spear. Nanaki would be the voice of reason, or so Cloud hoped, the same way he always was.

There was nothing for it, and no point to just stay out here. They needed to regroup, first and foremost, before any real decisions were to be made. So with that thought in mind he started off in the direction he remembered to be correct. The pale wavering light of dawning day made the path a bit easier now, since he had been steadily losing his sight over this time. "Come with me." he said softly, beckoning for Kadaj to follow.

The boy looked up, as if suddenly made re-aware of Cloud's presence. He stood there befuddled for a minute, as if unsure what to do and considering, before a look of resolve bled over his face and he started along, stumbling somewhat on the rocks before at last managing to regain his balance, catching up fast enough. He made a meek sniffle and wiped a leather-clad arm over his face one last time before his expression went stern and he made no more noise.

-

At first Cid had thought it was nothing... then he had thought it was a trick of the eyes or the light. A smudge of dust and blood out there and down below in the plains before Midgar carried up by the wind, a little geyser of lifestream from out of the earth, something. Then he thought it was Cloud and Vincent, a judgment that both lasted too briefly and was too touchy for him to risk bringing up if he was wrong... which he soon realized he was. Yet he was still reluctant to say anything, because the sight was just a bit too strange for his old eyes, yet he was the only one facing out towards Midgar, so he was the only one that saw it creeping up, closer, closer...

"Hey guys?" his voice was as cracked as it would been if he had just been smoking, which he had (regrettably) not been. Nanaki sleepily raised his chin off his paws and blinked his one eye at the pilot. Tifa twitched at the sound of his voice and then turned angrily, shooting a glare over her right shoulder.

"What is it?"

He pointed a finger over the ledge and raised a disbelieving eyebrow, "...tell me I'm not seeing what I think I am."

Nanaki eagerly hopped up and padded over to the edge to offer the help of his keen but still inherently flawed vision. He sidled right up to Cid's shoulder and craned his sleek scarlet neck over the edge, staring down.

Drawn by their silence, Tifa again twitched indecisively before sighing, swallowing her pride, and coming over to see as well, unable to help her curiosity. What she saw made her mouth slack open slightly, "It can't be..."

"It sure is!" a voice called out from below and far away, echoing weakly across the distance. The figure it belonged to lifted his hand up and waved it about furiously. "Hey there, Avalanche! Sound carries, you know!" he said in the unmistakable drawl of Reno confidential-last-name of the Turks. "What? Aren't you happy to see us?"

Tifa pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes testily. Glad though she was that there were some other survivors of meteor's crash than themselves, Turks were probably some of the last people on the planet she could have _wished_ would survive... especially Reno. So she turned again immediately and stomped away sitting back down in the direction of Cloud's imminent return.

"Who's that with you?" Cid shouted back, still pointing. Nanaki had already started down the uneven slope.

"It's Elena!" Reno answered brightly, patting his blonde-haired (which made it understandable that Cid had earlier mistaken her for Cloud) companion roughly on the back, causing her to cough and glare at the other Turk. Elena's posture was somewhat hunched, and her left arm was bent at a sharp right angle, its hand gripping tightly the right arm just above the elbow, right at the source of a dark stain in the fabric. "And, someone else I think you'll be pretty happy to see..."

This second person was met head-on (quite literally) by Nanaki, and their reunion was heralded by a little yelp from the beast as they collided.

"Greetings!"

"Cait Sith!" the creature nearly purred, it's brow furrowing, "Where's your... your giant... doll-thing?"

The little cat waved off his fellow non-human with a paw and shook his crowned head. "I don't need that thing to get around... he was fun for a while, but ultimately inconvenient and difficult to get into small places for spywork and stuff... which is what Reeve had me doing back in Midgar before he..." the robot trailed off, it's shiny eyes briefly growing dull with whatever possible sadness an AI could feel. "Well, before we get any farther, let me introduce myself. I'm number three, but unless we unearth a couple more intact copies back in Midgar, I'm the last there will ever be, so keep me safe!" he sing-songed before hopping up onto Nanaki's back.

It was difficult to say if Nanaki looked more relieved or annoyed at the robot's 'resurrection'. The stupid thing had always been too much of a smartass for it's own good and completely useless in battle, but on the other hand, it was like having a little piece of Reeve back... and that soothing idea put to rest any of the long-held grudges against the machine.

Tifa was back and looking over the edge, and by this time Reno and Elena had caught up to where the two beasts had met eachother. The redhead turned his gaze up and beckoned for the other two members of Avalanche to come down. "Let's talk a bit more intimately." he said with both the immature suggestiveness that made Tifa scoff and roll her eyes and the sly undertones that meant he really did have something of importance to discuss. "That rock face is gonna be a bitch to climb, and after you get done hearing what I have to say, you're going to be heading in this direction anyway."

"As a matter of fact, we were heading in this direction even before you found us." said Cid, swinging his legs around and searching for a foothold from which to climb down. Turning, he let his eyes drift up to Tifa who had crossed her arms over her chest and backed away from the ledge a little yet again. "Tifs..." he said gently.

Her eyes flared at the nickname, but she silently contented to look back down.

"Listen, we're not going far." it wasn't too hard to read her mind right now. "Just the bottom of the cliff. If Cloud comes back here he'd be a fool not to look around a bit, and deaf not to hear us talking down below. He'll find us."

The woman's resolve wavered, and Cid waited at the top as she thought the option over a bit, eventually heaving a sigh and consenting, hopping with graceful agility down to the bottom and completely showing the pilot up as he still struggled to get down without further hurting himself. He muttered softly under his breath, imagining the fighter was quite satisfied.

After everyone had convened in a small circle at the bottom, Reno looked over the worn faces of his old enemies. "Is this..." he started up carefully, "...all of you that made it?"

"No." Tifa snapped. "Cloud's out there." she gestured with a nod of her head back up to the top of the cliff, "He's... coming back." she asserted quietly.

"Yeah..." Cid picked up at the beginning of the awkward pause that followed Tifa's speech, "...and, we think, Vincent. That's why we're headed to Midgar. That's where we think he is."

"Really? Why?" Elena asked, her voice shaky with worry (and perhaps with pain, both mental and physical). Avalanche was, in her mind, walking willingly and unhesitatingly straight into the heart of the disaster: Midgar, now a veritable deathtrap... what could possibly survive in there?

"It's... where we last sent him." Cid said. "With Yuffie. We found her body but... not his, so it's possible..." he trailed off and looked at Tifa, distracted. He hoped that the truce was made... but judging by the cold and faraway look in her eyes, probably not yet.

"Oh..." said Elena meekly. She glanced over at Reno just as he looked to her. The two of them exchanged a covert glance before the redhead spoke up again with a sigh.

"Listen, we just came from there. Some weird shit's going down..."

"Oh yes..." Nanaki looked up as if suddenly remembering something, which offset the balance of the third Cait Sith on his back and caused the robot to grip onto his mane tightly. "...last night I met..." he paused, at once becoming conscious that he had just butt in, and reluctant to give the specific details. "...it is some sort of gathering, isn't it...? Of all the lifestream."

"You got it." Reno said, jabbing his index finger in the air toward the beast. "But you'll never guess why."

"Why?" Cid asked, humoring the Turk.

With a smug smile, Reno opened his mouth to reply when a gasp from Tifa cut him off. She'd been staring, expectedly, back up at the cliff top, and was therefore the first to notice Cloud... and his new companion.

Kadaj clung to the blonde's side, and was the immediate object of everyone's attention and hushed silence. They too noted the resemblance that Cloud had earlier, the straight silver hair, the neon-green eyes, the black leather getup and the sinister sword at his side. Despite his apparent lack of years, the boy could have been a son, a brother, even a copy of Sephiroth... and that fact held them all in wide-eyed, slackjawed confusion for a short time, during which Kadaj disappeared behind the swordsman, attempting to hide from their stares, apparently unappreciative of their recognition.

The tension was obvious in the thick and smoky air. Reno's hand was on his nightstick, Cid had that blank look in his eyes that betrayed the thought-process behind picking out appropriate swear-words, Tifa's pupils had literally constricted with fear the moment she saw him, and Nanaki's fur was stiff and bristled. If the last few days (and indeed, the last few years, at least for him) hadn't been a veritable whirlwind of emotion and destruction and the loss of hope, Cloud might have even found the situation amusing. He didn't... yet he still managed to crack, "I hope I'm not interrupting anything."

---

**Author's Ending Note Thingy:** I started this chapter so long ago, it's really shameful. For the longest time I was stuck on where to go after I left Cloud and Kadaj. I knew, of course, what needed to happen... I just didn't know how to get to it. So finally, one night (tonight) I said 'SCREW IT!' and stayed up until about 4AM listening to loud music in my headphones to help inspire me... and I guess it worked. XP Not sure if this is quite up to my longer-chapter promise, I haven't done a word count yet... it probably doesn't. And I know it wasn't a quick update either... so basically I'm a failure at life. XD Oh well! Hope you liked it, see you in the next installment, coming... eventually.


	10. Ch 10

"Strife!" Reno called, grinning dementedly, "Good to see ya. Who the fuck is that?"

Cloud stepped off the ledge and slid down to meet the assembled group at the bottom, wincing slightly at the strain. That wasn't as easy as it should have been... he'd very nearly lost his balance on the way down, and now his knees were killing him. The blonde looked up at Kadaj and beckoned for the boy to follow, which, after a short hesitation, he did with the ease of his ex-General lookalike himself. "Reno." the swordsman bit, "I wish I could say the same..."

"We're glad you got back safe." Tifa piped up, stepping forward politely in the hopes of negating whatever insult Reno had caused.

Clearly he'd missed something, Cloud thought. Tifa was now standing to greet him, a feat she couldn't have possibly managed with her injured legs yesterday... but now they appeared completely healed. Had they used a cure materia? Then there were the Turks. Where had they come from? And... "Cait Sith." he almost smiled, patting the little cat on the back fondly.

The robot gave a mock-salute and immediately climbed up Cloud's arm, perching on his shoulder like a monkey.

"Allright, now that we're done with formalities," Reno started, "I repeat: who the-fuck is that?" pointing outright at Kadaj, who balked and shriveled away from him.

"He says his name's Kadaj." Cloud claimed, sitting down between Tifa and Cid and patting the empty ground next to him for the boy to come sit down, "And he's-"

"He's a fucking lifesaver, that's what he is!" the Turk whispered without really making an effort to be unheard, his gaze shifting excitedly to Elena, who seemed to only partially share his enthusiasm through confused blue eyes. "I mean..." he waved a pale hand at Cloud, "...go on with what you were saying."

The swordsman was quiet for a moment, eyeing the man strangely. It was a general consensus that Reno was nuts, but this behavior was just baffling. "...right." putting his unwelcome presence aside, Cloud concentrated on the looks he was getting from everyone else. The word 'unsettled' would have made an accurate description. "I know what you're all thinking..." he started calmly, making a point to be deliberately vague. They would all catch on... and hopefully Kadaj wouldn't. "...but there's no way to be sure right now. He says he doesn't even remember where he comes from." the blonde looked at Kadaj, his so-called brother, and something ached in his heart to think of what the poor boy could mean for the world right now.

"And you're inclined to believe him, I suppose." said Cid skeptically, eyeing Cloud.

He narrowed his eyes at the pilot, and pursed his lips together, but remained silent. Everybody present was at least sure of one thing: discussing any matters relating to Kadaj right in front of him was dangerous. Outside of the unpleasant idea that someone (i.e. Jenova) could be watching, there was that seed of thought within them all which stated the likely possibility that they would have to kill him in the end, and as sick as it was, the less the boy suspected that, the less he'd fight it when the time came.

"Yeah, I believe him." the blonde said with finality, looking to their newest companion and laying a supportive hand on his shoulder. Kadaj at first flinched, then smiled faintly at his brother. "So what was it _you_ were going to tell us?"

Reno looked up from where he had been whispering to Elena, whose sparkling gaze was set so firmly on Kadaj that there was no doubt she'd just been informed of and come to understand the immensity of whatever her red-headed partner had in store for him. "Ah, yes..." he quickly covered, clearing his throat and straightening his battered jacket by the lapels. "...well, Lena and I just had the pleasure of coming from Midgar with Cait Sith."

The cat (still on Cloud's shoulder) gave a little 'right-o!' and another salute.

"Tif says that's where you guys were going... something about Vincent there," he shook his head as if to relay that he hadn't really been paying attention during the aforementioned conversation, "Listen, I hate to break it to you, guys, but at this point if he _was_ alive, he won't be anymore. The place is overrun."

'Tif' came in with a bitter laugh, "Overrun with what? Are you telling me something actually survived the crash? What, cockroaches, right?"

"Not nearly as humane." Reno winced, "And yeah,a whole lot of something. Buried down below underground until now, until, that is, meteor opened up a nice big crater for it to come pouring out of. Soldiers."

Cloud's back stiffened at the word, and everyone else visibly perked up. Nanaki's ears even stood a little straighter.

"I'm not talking your old-school sword-toting trenchcoat-wearing Soldiers, I mean some real freaky shit like you've never seen before. These guys are practically robots, drones. They've got wires all coming in and out of their chests, some weird kinda scopes on their heads, advanced weaponry..." he made accompanying hand-gestures as he spoke, acting out the descriptions and through doing so, making them seem all the more outlandish and bizarre. "I don't know what they are, but I'm telling you, for your sake, there's no way you'll be able to get into Midgar, poke around long enough to find your friend, and make it back out alive. No fuckin' way. They're crazy, Shiva knows where they get their orders from, but all they ever do is blindly follow them no matter what, you can't talk to them, can't distract them, can't reason with them, it's like they don't even hear you. They don't even break under torture-"

"Which, of course, you've tried." snapped Tifa, her arms folded over her chest.

"Desperate times." Reno shrugged.

"How did you manage to escape, then?" Nanaki cut in, desperate to get an explanation behind the strange occurrences at Midgar out of them before old rivalries turned this encounter into a fistfight.

"It was almost like..." Elena started, "...they were protecting something." she looked knowingly at Reno, who nodded assent. "And once we got far enough away from it, they broke off and quit trying to kill us." her expression hardened, "What's left of the city is their domain now. You won't get anywhere near it."

"What were they protecting?" Nanaki pressed, drawing the conversation around again before they could divert the subject, "Did you ever find out?"

Only he and Cloud caught Elena's almost imperceptible glance at Kadaj as Reno began to talk, jumping in on the answer just a little bit too quickly to make it believable, and Cait Sith fidgeted on the swordsman's shoulder. "No, we didn't. World ending and all, didn't exactly seem like a convenient time to find out."

Tifa's knuckles cracked as her fists clenched, and her eyes grew narrower.

Elena was now openly staring at Kadaj again, who yawned slightly. She looked up, seizing the opportunity and said, "Look, it seems like it's been a long day for us all. Let's just take some time to rest and recoup, we'll _all_ decide on a plan of action later, how does that sound?" she looked to her superior to make sure the possibility that he might be taking another's orders soon was okay. Reno gave no particular answer, just tapped his fingers on the ground and stared into space.

Cid seemed obliged to rest, leaning back and laying a hand gingerly on his ribs, but Cloud twitched with impatience. There wasn't any time, not for the planet, not for Vincent, not for himself... his strength was still ebbing away with every second. If what Reno had said about Midgar crawling with some new Soldiers was true, then they had to reach it before he became completely useless in a fight, or else they really did have no hope of saving the gunman... Despite these thoughts racing through his mind, it didn't take long for the antsy blonde to catch wind of Elena's true intent.

Kadaj, taking advantage of the woman's declaration, lay down, pillowing his head on his arms. His eyes were already beginning to droop with want for sleep. Cloud bit his lip nervously and lay a hand on the boy's tense back, rubbing it with a somewhat awkward attempt at being comforting. All eyes were on the two of them as Kadaj slowly relaxed, evened his breathing... and his eyes remained closed.

All eyes were still on him for a few minutes after he'd dozed off, before Reno let out a shuddering breath that no-one had realized he'd been holding. "Allright. Back to business."

"You're damn right back to business!" Cid griped, "You come here tellin' us about some strange lifestream thing happening at Midgar and then all of a sudden as soon as he arrives..." he jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at the sleeping youth. "...you start this babble about fantastic freak-Soldiers. What the fuck are you playing at?"

The redhead had raised his hands in innocence during Cid's tirade, waiting for the pilot's anger to simmer down before he started talking. Cloud sat hunched and uncomfortable, his attentions (and his loyalties, he found) torn between the current conversation and the sleeping boy. "Calm down before you wake the kid up." Reno hissed, eyeing Cid distrustfully. "Cait, you keep an eye on him, make sure he doesn't crack an eyelid before we're done talking."

Cait Sith gave another salute and 'right-o' before hopping off of Nanaki's back and scampering over to where Kadaj lay, taking up his new post right in front of him, peering down. After a bit of hesitation, Cloud decided that this was an adequate enough excuse for him to tear his sights away from the boy and turn to fully face the unfolding discussion.

"Allright, Avalanche, here's the truth." started Elena, silencing Reno with her uninjured arm flung out to the side in front of him, intent on getting through her explanation rationally and with minimal interruption. "And you'd better appreciate it, because doing decent research on a company with shit-lousy records when every computer in Midgar and most of the hard-copies have burned up in a meteor crash while the survivors are out to kill you is really, really hard." her shrill voice rose with every word, and even Tifa shrunk under her youthful fire.

"The group Reno talked about is called Deepground, they were a very secret, very controversial group of test subjects, an offshoot of Soldier." she began, her silvery-blue eyes wandering slowly but surely over to Kadaj as she spoke. She had to keep drawing them back and focusing on the dusty ground in front of her, digging knees down into it and further dirtying the threadbare fabric that covered them. "We weren't lying when we said they were protecting something... we're just not sure exactly what." she gnawed on her lower lip slightly. "Cait did some spywork for us, but frankly, what he got wasn't all that helpful. We know _what_ they're doing, and that it's apparently pretty important, but we don't know _why_ it's happening."

"Then tell us." Nanaki pressed, "What did you see?"

"The lifestream." Elena said simply, "For some reason, it's all being gathered in Midgar, in one place, guarded by Deepground. We don't know what they're going to do with it, hell, we'd never even heard of them before a few days ago, but one thing's for sure..." she trailed off with all of Avalanche leaning forward, eyes wide in anticipation.

Nothing came, the woman was silent, obviously contesting something in her mind... her dust-coated blonde hair fell over her eyes.

Reno simply sighed at her hesitation, and jumped right in. "Everything's going according to plan."

"Plan?" Cloud eyed him.

"Yup, according to plan. Whose plan? Well, apparently Deepground's, but you know who else's?" he leaned forward as well, smirking smugly. His aquamarine gaze darted briefly over to Kadaj, still sleeping soundly, "Jenova's."

There was a small pause after this, then. "Shit, he's right." Cid shook his head, "It's exactly like the bitch wanted. Meteor hits, all the lifestream energy gathers in one spot, she sucks it all in and takes off to another planet to do the same, leaving this one to rot." it was that horror story they'd heard a thousand times in a thousand different ways, each with it's own highlights and speculations.

"Yeah." Reno nodded grimly, "Except..."

"...except, you killed her." Elena pointed out. "So all the energy's gathering with no Jenova there to get it."

"Yeah..." Cloud began, "That should be good, right?"

"Should be, yeah." Elena went on, "We're no scientists..." she gestured between Reno and herself, "...but the general consensus is that after this happened, the lifestream was supposed to rush in, patch the place up, and then go back to whatever it was doing. The problem is it's not leaving... and we think Deepground has something to do with that."

"Simple enough." Cid nodded, "So now here's the question: how do we stop them?" he straightened with a wince and planted his gloved hands squarely on the ground before him. "The way you made it sound, they're pretty undefeatable, after all, if the whole city is crawling with them..."

_And what about Vincent?_ spoke a sad little voice in Cloud's head. Their friend seemed to be getting lost amid all this bigger, planet related stuff, which was understandable, but they hadn't asked for any of it, the rest was all unexpected. When they started toward Midgar, it was to get Vincent and get out. It was before that they were supposed to save the world, but their attempt only seemed to have made it worse. 

"That." Reno was grinning full-out now, as he pointed over to Kadaj, "Is where he comes in."

Tifa raised a slender eyebrow in confusion, "Excuse me, What? We don't even really know who he is yet, and-"

"Oh, come on." the redhead hissed, his stare turning feral, "Look at him. Just _look_. You're an intelligent lady, Tifs, don't _tell_ me you don't know what he is."

The fighter briefly fell silent, before asking, "So what's he supposed to do?"

"Deepground is a wildcard." Reno started, "We know what they're doing, we know it's bad, but we don't know why or what will happen. Jenova... we've had her figured out for a long time, _and_ we know we can stop her." he looked confidently to Cloud. "He..." Kadaj "...just needs to get in there, soak all that energy up to get it away from Deepground, and be done away with and everything will return to normal. Jenova dies again, all the lifestream goes back to the planet, Deepground doesn't get it, and everybody's happy."

Slowly, appalled looks of rage began creeping over each Avalanche member's face. Cloud's was white, his eyes ablaze, but before he got the chance to make an outburst, Elena quietly explained: "It's the lesser of two evils."

---

**Author's Ending Note Thingy: **Okay, so it's occurred to me that the heat and radiation caused by a massive meteor impact on a planet wouldn't go away soon enough for anyone, Deepground, Vincent, or Turks, to be capable of surviving on the site of the crash within just a few days... but hey, FF7 has weird physics which allow for things like Matrix moves occurring outside of the Matrix, and Cloud's hair... so we'll go with it and pretend I didn't say anything. Haha. 

Another kind-of long, but still not what I promised length-wise chapter, but given the short amount of time between updates, I hope you'll forgive me. I have the next chapter already brewing… I'll get it done providing I can squeeze it in between Easter preparations and finishing my last projects for school, but I might hold it in reserve once it's finished to bridge the potentially really long gap between updates. Just an FYI.


	11. Ch 11

**Author's Beginning Note Thingy:** WARNING, complicated chapter filled with meaty plot devices concieved by an immensely bored and tired mind ahead. I hope it all makes sense...

--

"No." was the swordsman's immediate answer.

"Lesser of two evils my ass!" Cid broke in, "You don't even know that!"

"Think about what you're saying! You're talking about using him as a _sacrifice_!" Cloud's usually even voice shook with anger, "You're crazy! Yeah, we've killed Jenova once, but do you have any idea what we went through to do it?!"

"Probably no-"

"Shut up, Reno!" he yelled, "And that was Jenova without the added bonus of _all_ the lifestream energy in the world, when we were at our full strength, when Yuffie and Barret and probably Vincent, by now, weren't _dead_!"

"Cloud..." Tifa pleaded, the flush of fiercer emotion brought out by the Turks' idea already draining from her cheeks, "...please..." she reached out and wrapped her cool fingers around his forearm, but he pulled it away when he noticed the nervous glance she took at Kadaj when she spoke. He still slept peaceful and undisturbed, blissfully unaware of the discussion that raged on over him about his own fate.

"We're not doing it." Cloud said with a fervent shake of the head, "That's final."

Reno's eyes were narrowed and it was clear to see that his blood boiled beneath the surface of his pale skin. "Allright." he said icily, struggling (and meeting with decent success) at keeping the level of his voice down. "Allright, Strife. We'll do it your way. Ah, what is your way again?"

Cloud was immediately silenced, to even his own surprise, though the fury raged on in the expression on his face… but his throat had closed and no words came.

"What? No plan?" Reno cocked his head to one side.

A heavy silence hung in the air around them, and far off on the horizon lightning whipped at the earth and thunder boomed across the beaten landscape. Cait Sith turned a worried glance over his furry shoulder at the two parties facing off. Tifa only had eyes for Cloud, and they were moving over every aspect of his posture, the forced way his back was propped up, painfully straight at the base and hunched at the top, the way his arms hung, leaden, the thick black lines under his eyes that weren't stains of ash.

"Cloud...?" she finally said, clearing her throat. He looked up, his eyes mad, but unusually dull. Cid peered at him unsurely for the second before he turned away. His fervor gone, he further slumped, the fire sucked right out of him. "Cloud, you're exhausted." the fighter finished, "You didn't sleep last night." it didn't take a Turk to tell.

Cloud mashed his lips together. For the thousandth time that hour the words ran through his head along with the accompanying sting of guilt: No time to rest right now, no time. Not for him, not for Vincent, not for the planet or anyone... but Tifa was agonizingly correct. He _was_ exhausted. It was all he could do to remain upright at the moment, which was no doubt somewhat attributed to the waning supply of mako in his system. If it weren't for that… maybe he would be okay. He badly needed sleep, though it was unlikely he'd feel any better when he woke up.

Nevertheless...

"Allright, here's how it's going to be." the blonde croaked. "I'm going to take a nap." Reno snickered, but a collective glare from Avalanche (and his own partner) shut him up. "Reno and Elena are going to stay here with us," he addressed his own group, "Cid and Nanaki, you keep an eye on them." the two nodded, and the Turks gave no complaint. "Tifa, go sit by Cait and take care of Kadaj if he wakes up and needs anything." she was the only one he could trust with the boy right now, and thankfully she also nodded in assurance and agreement with his 'order', her fingertips straying across his back as she moved away to the boy's side.

Cloud lowered himself to the rocky ground, lay his head back... he didn't even remember closing his eyes before sleep was on him, aggressively.

-

_You are family._ the voice was cold and hypnotizing, _Do as you're told, my son... my... you were always my favorite child, my favorite... puppet._

Cloud gasped and tried to claw at the dense blackness, but it was thick as molasses, and his limbs wouldn't move. They felt chained to his sides. He could almost feel the arms of that darkness surrounding him, drawing him into a poisoned embrace, as malicious and loveless as silken ice...

_Your mother loves you, Cloud... and your brother Kadaj... loves you too. Save him, save him and save me. You don't want your mother to die..._ the hideous echo washed out like the tide of a polluted ocean and left him there alone.

-

"They're on the right track, you know."

The air was balmy warm and the sky was white, pure white... not the blue of a natural day, but not the disheartening lit black of a scorched atmosphere. For a moment, the rocky bed beneath him was like soft grass, and Cloud thought he felt sunshine... until he realized the bed beneath him _was_ grass, and the world was warm all over.

Sitting up straight with a gasp, he looked around wildly. Where was he? Was he... was he dead? It felt like that... he'd been dead (or at least very close to it) before... but no, this was far too tangible for that. And he saw... he saw...

Over to his right sat two women, kneeling in the lilies casually, looking almost as if he'd just dropped in on their picnic. They were both beautiful, but their young faces were grim and marked with care.

"They've just got a really bad idea." said the same one as before, softly.

"Aeris..."

She smiled encouragingly.

"Aeris…" he repeated, muttering, and pushing a hand self-consciously through his yellow head of spikes. "…and..." his focus shifted from the first miraculous specter to the second, which he also recognized, despite it being far less familiar. It was likely only the recency of his meeting her that allowed for the recognition, "...Lucrecia?"

She smiled as well, that same sad, slow smile that Aeris had, with the same shadow of predetermined defeat in her eyes.

"Is this a dream?" Cloud shook his head in confusion. It had to be, but everything was so real... the warmth of her smile, the shade of her dress... the light, the leaves of the flowers shaking in the soft breeze, the smell of the grass...

"Something like that." Aeris said, her voice just as soothing as he'd remembered it, yet tinted with urgency. "Cloud, listen..."

Despite the sensation he was getting that the world was spinning, the haze of wooziness in his mind, Cloud fell instantly silent and at attention. He'd never considered himself a spiritual person until he met the unfortunate flowergirl... ever since, he'd never disregarded a single sign that the planet had chosen to give him, and he especially wasn't about to start now, in the time of most dire need.

"It's about Deepground." Lucrecia spoke delicately.

"How do you know about them?" Cloud asked, astonished, to which the two women sent him almost motherly, quieting looks, and he shut his mouth. That question was not important, he realized, it wasted the time he held so preciously, and these two… spirits, angels, whatever he should call them, didn't need to answer it.

"That's where Vincent is." she said almost dreamily, looking off into the white distance over his shoulder.

The swordsman felt his heart skip a beat (which was a good thing, to know it was still beating), and a flood of relief rise from his toes to the top of his head. "Thank Shiva... then he's alive."

"For now." Lucrecia said weightily, and her face was still just as grave, with every drop of intensity in her stare directed entirely at Cloud, and he sputtered and drowned in its depth, hunching his shoulders and looking down. She then stared off, letting her ethereal gaze settle somewhere else, on something that didn't exist or had been swallowed up into the whiteness, and said lightly "I haven't seen him in a long time..."

"You've said that before." Cloud muttered.

"I do know..." she went on as if she hadn't heard him, "...that you must go to him."

"Yeah." Cloud breathed, nodding, "We are."

"No." Aeris snapped, her voice far more forceful than he had ever heard it. "We mean _you_, Cloud, and only you. If there's any hope for Vincent, for the entire planet, you have to go to him alone. Especially now that-"

"Kadaj..." the swordsman cut in, suddenly understanding, "...it's him, isn't it? Reno was right. That's what you meant when you said-"

"That they're on the right track." Aeris finished off his sentence, her speech gentle once again. She sat back on her heels lightly. "But they've just got a really bad idea. Kadaj is..." she trailed off, looked to her companion. Cloud's gaze shifted too, eagerly, hanging on every word that came out of the two maidens' lips.

The scientist worked her skirt between her hands nervously. "...Kadaj is an avatar of Sephiroth." she said softly, the regret pooling in her brown eyes for numerous reasons. "And _almost_ all that is left of Jenova." she looked up and stared pointedly at Cloud, a look he didn't catch.

He sighed and sat back. So his worst suspicions were true... spoken out of the mouth of the mother (both of them, now that he thought about it, and shivered) herself. "So what will he do?" the swordsman asked bluntly, "If we follow Reno's plan introduce him to the lifestream and then use him as a... as a..." he stumbled on the final word because of the look in Lucrecia's eyes, but at last swallowed and finished it, "...sacrifice?"

"It's not that simple." Aeris answered, and she looked at Lucrecia as well. The other woman was stiff, her eyes blank and her face unmoving. The Ancient sighed. "Ruling out any number of variables, if everything went according to the way _Reno_ says it would…" she added a complimentary eyeroll along with the Turk's name, which made Cloud smirk and snicker under his breath. It was a wonder to see her again, she hadn't changed one bit… and the horrible thought occurred to him that he would probably never have another chance like this, to be here with her, and here he was spending it talking over tactics.

"…then yes," she finished, "the lifestream would disperse back into all corners of the planet... but, it would take from Kadaj every bit of Jenova that was left with it." it was just now he noticed that her fists were clenched, her knuckles white, and she spoke through slightly clenched teeth.

"Can you imagine, Cloud? Jenova cells being spread all over, _all over_ the world... and on it's ravaged surface that tainted lifestream would be used to heal. Jenova being reborn, if only in part, in all living things. Can you imagine it?" her voice seemed on the verge of tears, and it shook with every word she said, "Every blade of grass, every bird in the sky, everything, even people... growing and growing and spreading more and more until Jenova would _become_ the planet." her striking eyes were wide with horror.

There wasn't a word powerful or all-encompassing enough for the emotion Cloud felt. Aeris was always optimistic, happy, even proud, nothing ever dampened her spirits... and the hopelessness in her eyes, the fear in her voice... he wanted to protect her, to save her in any way he still could from this oncoming disaster, and yet her loss of hope practically paralyzed him. "What about..." he gulped, "...Deepground?" Reno's so-called wildcard, Elena's so-called greater of two evils. Given the aspect of their Jenova-based plan that the Turks had not taken into consideration, these Soldiers were looking alot more friendly all of a sudden.

"That's where it gets complicated." Aeris told him, the distress banished from her tone as suddenly and surprisingly as it had just gotten there. "Lucrecia?" her voice was quiet and unassuming as she looked to her companion, who by now had recovered from her statuelike state.

"Deepground..." the woman started in a quivering alto, then diverted. "...a long, long time ago, I came up with a theory." she began, and Cloud, taking the cue, sat back and got comfortable for the backstory he could feel coming.

"You are more familiar than most, I can probably assume, with the Weapons of the planet." she said, looking up and shaking the river of pale brown hair back behind her. The swordsman hadn't exactly noticed it until just now... how solid she was. Even the starched white of her labcoat against the colorless background didn't blend in with it. She was decidedly _there_ unlike before when it seemed to take all the energy she could hold just to keep her form distinct. Something about that definition, the solidness of things here - less surreal, less dreamlike - made them easier to take. He nodded in response.

"Sapphire, Diamond, Emerald, Ruby and Ultima are just the tip of the iceberg." she said, "The first wave, shall we say, designed to protect the planet from a conceived threat, and as you know... they failed."

He knew indeed. Cloud remembered the fierce battles with Diamond and Ultima, remembered the impact of Emerald and Ruby into the oncoming meteor, the way they had done nothing.

"The planet has a failsafe for times like this. When all hope is lost, all options have failed, and there's nothing left to do but die..." she stopped and shook her head before becoming too morbid. "You see, the planet, like us, belongs to a larger lifestream, and when it comes time for it to be destroyed the energy from our world as a whole must be taken away to rejoin that cosmic cycle... but the space it must travel is so vast, it needs a vessel to help get it there." She took a breath, then sighed, seemingly preparing herself for the long explanation, clearly unused to discussing it with someone who wasn't as completely an intellectual as she. Cloud felt more than a little inferior, and guilty. "My theory states that the planet has two final entities, similar to the protective Weapons, involved in that process - you might be familiar with at least one of them: Chaos and Omega."

Cloud's heart jumped, and an instinctive spike of panic shot through his mind at the mention of the first. Oh yes, he was familiar with Chaos... the most destructive and terrifying of Vincent's 'demons', and also the most powerful. It had been Lucrecia herself that had given it to him, he remembered the return trip to that sparkling cavern where he had first met the woman, Vincent at his side. He was there when his friend had first received the creature, he saw first-hand the carnage it was capable of. What could Chaos possibly have to do with _saving_ the planet?

"Omega is the being that does that, transporting the energy of this planet away when it dies. Chaos is essentially the bringer of death, sent out to harvest every last living soul, every remaining ounce of lifestream before the end so that it may all be taken away to safety." Lucrecia's voice had filled out from the meek whisper it was before. She was wading deep into her old expertise, and as ironic as it did sound, some life seemed to return to her as she went on. "That, I think, is why Deepground is holding him. They already have the second half of the equation: the human host to Omega. Vincent is the first, and now all there is left for them to do is awaken the beast inside him for the premature destruction to begin."

"Premature..." Cloud repeated, "...you mean... the planet isn't supposed to die yet?"

Lucrecia shook her head, "I don't think so... and in any case, do you want it to?" her lips perked faintly into the semblance of a smile. "The lifestream is already gathering, Omega is already prepared to take it up, and the longer it remains trapped in Midgar, the more the rest of the world withers, dies little by little, and the farther everything sinks into the inevitable. If the lifestream is restored the world still be saved, but the longer it stays away, the less chance there is of that happening."

The blonde shook his head, "If that's true..." he started, already beginning to feel the cold void of doubt taking shape in his heart, "...then how come Chaos _hasn't_ come yet? It's not like Vincent has _complete_ control. I've seen him lose it plenty of times, and once he's out, I don't think Chaos needs Omega's invitation to kill."

"That's true." Lucrecia said, "Your question is valid."

As miniscule and unimportant as that small compliment was, Cloud felt bolstered that he had managed to pick out sense from the scientist's thick explanation.

"And it leads down an avenue of my research that I admit I didn't explore as much as I should have... but I will help you there in any way I can." she assured softly. "I believe there is away to avoid this destruction and I admit it's all very..." she paused again, searching for the proper words, "...mystical and unscientific... but, it's all we've got left, so we have to try. A vast majority of my research on this subject has been derived solely from fragments of text left behind by the Ancients… Aeris has helped me fill in a few blanks regarding our current situation." The flowergirl nodded recognition of her own contribution, and motioned for Lucrecia to continue. "During the time when Jenova first landed on the planet – the first meteorfall, quite parallel to this – there was another scare that Chaos might be let out before his time." she said.

Aeris picked up where she left off, "Back then, there were three Ancients who worked tirelessly to keep the planet's own defense system from destroying itself: Eurynome was the original creator of Chaos, Sigyn restrained him as he struggled to escape his bonds, and Indra was eventually forced to destroy him and send him back to the planet." she spoke as if she had close friendships with all three, which Cloud didn't doubt was possible. "These Ancients, in death, eventually combined and became what we now call the 'protomateria', and embody its three main uses."

The swordsman's head was already spinning, "Protomateria?" he asked meekly.

Lucrecia offered a sheepish nod of the head and explained, "Chaos is meant to be Omega's servant, sent out to kill, but only at his master's bidding. One of the uses of the protomateria is that it allows whomever possesses it to have a measure of control over Chaos. Vincent has it now… I suspect Deepground is working on a way of extracting it from his body so that it might be given to Omega. If that happens, the beast will awaken for sure." the ominous end to her speech left Cloud with the feeling that it was finished, but no, the story went on…

Aeris cleared her throat, "Some lore suggests that Eurynome, Sigyn and Indra were not completely absorbed into the protomateria, which, by the very cyclical nature of the lifestream, means that whatever miniscule parts of them remained could be reborn within others, along with the unique powers over Chaos each one held."

"If this is true, then I am, of course, Chaos' creator, Eurynome..." Lucrecia sighed, pressing a hand to her chest. "I gave Vincent the protomateria when he visited me at the fountain in Nibelheim, I activated the dormant monster within him…" she trailed off heavily, "I believe the reason that Deepground is having so much difficulty awakening him now is because of the presence of Sigyn, or some part of her. Someone down there with Vincent is helping him keep Chaos in check, whether they mean to or not. I doubt they even know they're doing it. It's bought us some time, but we can't count on it lasting forever."

"That's where you come in." Aeris spoke.

Cloud looked dumbfounded, "Me?" he asked, "What do I have to do with any of this? To rescue Vincent, to go into Midgar alone, ensure that Kadaj doesn't taint the lifestream... is... is that what you mean?" though he knew better than to fool himself into thinking it was.

Lucrecia shook her head, confirming the blonde's suspicions. "No, Cloud. Your role is far more important. You are the destroyer."

His heart sank into his stomach, and the swirl of doubt that had started there turned straight to despair and swallowed it whole. "Then…" his voice was weak when he heard it, "...I have to kill Vincent?"

The women both winced, and Lucrecia quickly stepped in, "The... term isn't exactly accurate in that sense..." she said quietly, "...again, it's more complicated than that. You do not so much destroy Chaos as you... recreate him."

Cloud stared at her skeptically, disliking the technicalities.

"You have the ability, as the partial reincarnation of Indra and the third force that acts on Chaos, to redirect his power and his purpose. If you get close enough to him, you will be able to manipulate the protomateria from within his body, converting it." she explained, "Instead of collecting, for Omega, all the energy on the planet, you will instead be able to take what has been already gathered away from him using Chaos as a catalyst."

"Using Vincent's body as a tool." Cloud reworded. His eyes, though now almost completely bereft of their glow, were bitter and cold. "And then what?" he spat.

"Then..." Aeris breathed, forging on through the deepening gloom of her friends' fates, "...you will be in possession of the converted protomateria, the 'primamateria', as the Ancients called it. But, that kind of energy can't be contained for long... you must only hold it until Omega dissipates, and then release it back into the planet... and the world will return to normal." over the course of this final speech, the look in her eyes dampened. Cloud caught the missing information, the facts she was holding back. He knew what they were, but wasn't sure if he was angry or grateful that she hadn't relayed them.

There was a long silence between them, during which the two sides stared unblinkingly at one another across the plains of death. Thoughts passed out like spidersilk over the empty space... and understanding hung heavy in each unspoken word. They were all thinking it: Vincent had to be told... he couldn't just be taken up and used as an element of this plan without knowing what he was for. That, and Cloud... why Cloud? Aeris bit her lip. She could see it in his eyes, and after not much longer, the flowergirl sighed. "Lucrecia and I have thought this over for a very long time." the girl said, "We wouldn't be bringing it up to you if we weren't very sure..." her eyes crinkled with sympathy and she reached out and lay her hand on Cloud's shoulder.

"So you're saying I have a piece of an Ancient, of… of Indra in me?" he shook his head quickly, denying. It was impossible, ridiculous! Him? He wasn't anything special, never had been, he was… only human. Except…

The swordsman struggled to calm himself. Supposing they were right… assuming this wild plan were plausible and all this information somehow true, then… "I underwent experiments too," he said softly, "I have Jenova in me. If the lifestream goes through me, won't it have the same effect as it would going through Kadaj?"

Aeris smiled reassuringly at him, and gave his shoulder a little squeeze, "We've already thought of that." she looked at Lucrecia.

The woman picked up the ball easily, jumping right back into her scientist-mode. "Jenova thrives on the power of mako energy..." she explained, "...which is very rapidly being eaten up by your body. But Deepground, as a variation on the Soldier program, used a different material to make its members strong: G-substance. There are huge stores of it down there which you will have complete access to if you manage to infiltrate their base. G-substance is essentially the opposite of mako... unprocessed, raw, stagnant... and we believe Jenova will be averse to it. Taking enough in will essentially destroy any trace of her left in your system."

For the first time that night, Cloud couldn't grasp what he was hearing. Jenova… gone? No more visions, no more pains, no more shrieking voices of beings from Hades knows where and thoughts that weren't his own in his head? Five years it had been with nothing but that, no way to shut it out… if he could again experience silence, even for a blessed minute before the end... Suddenly the plan made sense. Despite the outlandish plots, the lofty and disconnected reasoning, the huge sacrifice, he internalized it, managed to wrap his head around it, and understood. "Ancients... if this works..."

"If this works..." Aeris said with the touch of a giggle in her voice, "...you will be the single greatest savior this planet has ever known." she moved her hand to his cheek, smiling directly at him, "…and your memory will live on long after today's greatest cities crumble into the dust, and the very surface of the world has changed beyond our own recognition."

Cloud laughed breathily, his head still light with the sheer immensity of his task. "I always wanted to be in the newspapers…" he murmured, closing his eyes at the misty memory that floated across his brain. Oh, how ironic.

Aeris' smile remained, but her eyes dulled. "We have to go now." she said, "There's still alot for us to do. Even the dead don't rest in peace in times like these."

The swordsman's heart sank like an anchor yet again, and the light completely left his eyes as well (in more ways than one). "Aeris..." he weakly said, "...no. Wait." the importance, the destiny, great sense of worth and the pride were all zapped from his mind as if they never came, and he could cling to only one thought. "What if I never see you again?" he was panicked, breathless. All this time and the object of his deepest regret had been sitting in front of him, he'd hardly spoken a word to her... said nothing on that long list he'd compiled of things he'd wished he'd said... once again she was fleeting away and out of reach.

She smiled with pity as she faded into the background and the rush of reality came bubbling back up. The light was gone, the heat... the course grass was replaced by jagged stone, and Cloud felt a weight back in his limbs as he became once again aware that he'd been asleep.

Her voice echoed, though, in the back of his mind as he woke up, _Don't worry._ she assured him, _You will._

--

**Author's Ending Note Thingy:** Okay, I hope the wacky theories don't scare you off. I wouldn't be surprised if they do, this all is the result of me staying up way past my bedtime and pondering beyond the level of depth any story really has. This chapter is twice as long as anything that's come before it… so I think that after posting this, I'm going on a looooong break. XD


	12. Ch 12

Aeris...

To protect her... to save her... there was only one way now, Cloud knew. Only one path to take, and it led straight to Midgar, into the heart of darkness beneath the earth, and possibly even the very pits of hell, but he would walk it willingly because it was his last chance at redemption.

He didn't know how long he'd slept, but he let his eyelids slide open lazily, and squinted into the sky. Everything was so dark... he'd never really noticed, but... by now all the mako must be gone, and all he had left was his own will and that huge sense of destiny that had just been bestowed upon him.

"Cloud..." the voice was gentle, but urging. Different than Aeris', but still as sweet.

Cloud looked up a Tifa in a different light. She had somehow procured Cid's jacket again, and the pilot sat some distance away, his back turned, and his hard eyes stuck to the two Turks, who had moved even farther off.

"Where's Kadaj?" he asked, his voice a hoarse whisper from breathing in ash.

"He's playing with Cait Sith and Nanaki." she said with a gentle laugh, gesturing over her shoulder where the young Kadaj was watching the little cat do card magic with fascination. How the little robot managed sleight of hand with paws, Cloud didn't know... and would probably never find out. "You've been asleep a couple hours... nearest I can figure, at least." she reported, sitting back on her heels again as Cloud got up.

"Thanks." the swordsman said, running a hand through his hair. Hades, had it always been this dark? Is this what others saw through normal eyes?

The woman smiled faintly back in return, and Cloud realized she hadn't caught the point. "No, I mean it..." he said softly, but firmly, "...thankyou, Tifa... for everything, everything you ever did..."

This time it didn't go past her, she locked on instantly and grabbed ahold like a pit-bull. Her eyes became hard - only outwardly, for he had long since learned to see past that into the deep caverns of worry that lay within - and her happy expression vanished, replaced by one of utter seriousness. "Cloud, what is it?" she demanded, her voice laced with minute, yet distinct quavering that only a trained ear like his could pick up. "What's happened?"

Cloud almost laughed - and he couldn't tell where this newfound levity came from... perhaps it was the predetermined knowledge of his doom, the certainty of it... the fact that he could hold it, shape it in his hands, knew precisely where and when - "If I told you," he said, curling up and resting his arms across his bended knees, "you wouldn't believe me."

Tifa's jaw set and she leaned further back, placing her hands on her hips intimidatingly. "Try me." she said, her teeth grit. She'd lost Cloud once before to idle fantasy, now was absolutely not the time to have it happen again, so while she had him hooked, she would pull her hardest on the line and try to pluck him from those swallowing waters of dreamland.

He'd expected more than that simple order, but none of it come... there had been similar exchanges between them in the past, and he had always managed to wave it off or distract Tifa so as to dodge around her questions, but now... well, why not. "I saw Aeris." Cloud reported.

"I believe you." Tifa said immediately.

"And Lucrecia."

"Who?"

The swordsman sighed, lifting his hands up and laying them on Tifa's shoulders. This seemed to calm her, and, if nothing else, took her by surprise. "Listen... this is... a _really_ long story, and very complicated, I... I just don't think there's time." he shook his head, "You've just got to trust me on this..."

Tifa's eyes were large, and she quirked her head to the side in confusion, dark hair falling over her weary face, "Trust you on what...?" she asked.

"There's something..." he glanced over carefully at Kadaj, still distracted, happy, the perfect image of a youthful child - an innocent. "...that I've got to take care of."

The fighter followed his gaze, and her shoulders slumped at the termination of it. She turned back to him with lidded eyes and a disbelieving tone, "Aeris didn't tell you that Reno's plan..." she trailed off, not wanting to finish it. It was a sad day, and truly proof the world was ending when Reno was right about anything... but if Aeris supported it, what else did they possibly have to go on?

"No, no..." Cloud said hastily, putting her fears to rest, "...not at all."

She bit her lower lip roughly, the pink skin turning white under the strain, "You're being really vague."

"I know, I'm sorry..." the swordsman chewed on his lower lip lightly. "I need to talk with everyone." he glanced at Kadaj, then warily at the Turks, finishing, "Subtly."

There was a moment of quiet confusion where Tifa's eyes flickered over the same figures that Cloud's did, and then she understood. "Allright, I'll see what I can do." the woman consented with a nod, getting to her feet daintily.

It was then that Cloud first noticed... and he blamed this prolonged ignorance on the fact that he'd been dead tired getting back last night/morning/time he was awake/whatever and just hadn't noticed before. But now, he mentioned at last, with renewed wonder from someone who'd thought he'd seen it all. "Tifa..." he said quietly, "...your legs..." how was that possible when he carried the only Cure materia left to the party while he'd been out?

Tifa stopped, looked down, and smiled, "You wonder why I believed you so quickly about Aeris?" she asked in that light tone, the one she used for reading bedtime stories to Marlene, "She visited me too. Patched me up. A real miracle." the fighter breathed.

Cloud shook his head and gave a surprised 'huh'. Well look at that... not only did the little Midgar flowergirl offer guidance, but also tangible help from beyond the grave. Amazing. No doubt she was the only creature left in the lifestream who could manage something like that. She truly was a diamond in the rough; an angel spawned from the humblest beginnings and settled in the most unremarkable surrounding. What a wonder that they'd found her, what a blessing that she was still around. "A real miracle." he muttered as Tifa began to walk away, "We'd better start counting them."

-

During his sleep, Cloud learned, the Turks had passed out what minor provisions they had managed to bring with them from their salvage in Midgar. Everyone else had at least been slightly fed, and he too forced down one or two standard-issue energy bars and mineral drinks while Tifa went around, 'subtly' relaying the news of Cloud's mysterious announcement.

Cait Sith and Nanaki had been set to guarding Kadaj, as they were already with him to begin with (avoiding a sudden switch of playmates possibly arousing the boy's suspicion... he may have been young, but he was still Sephiroth), and they could more easily listen in with their sensitive hearing to the hushed voices passed around within the others' congregation.

Cloud, to be honest, didn't know where to start. It wasn't as if he hadn't held these sorts of group meetings - in fact he had, lots of times - but looking around the circle now, the faces present were different, both in the sense that the familiar ones had changed, and that the new ones were unfamiliar. Nevertheless, Reno and Elena stared back with that exact same veiled expectance that, in past times, Vincent or Yuffie might have had... and Cid, never one to disappoint, jarred him on in the usual way he did with a gruff but patient "Well, what's goin' on?"

Here he was again, stringing together an explanation for a mass of people out of something he himself barely understood. Just like old times, when he was bouncing reflections off the shattered mirrors of his mind, Cloud sighed. "Allright." he began after that deep breath, "You'll all... have to bear with me a little on this..." understatement of the century, and he sent a pointed look at Reno, who already seemed to be losing interest, staring off almost greedily at Kadaj, "...and listen to me 'til the end, no cutting in." the same way he'd been delivered it, this crazy hope now burning in his mind.

The reactions of the four were interesting to gauge, Cid had that thoughtful nonplussed look about him, Tifa was upright and attentive as ever, Elena appeared as he thought she might when receiving orders from command, and Reno had adopted an almost defiant posture, clearly intent on daring that last condition he'd put forward. All in all, this was probably as good as it was going to get, and over to their far right, Cait Sith had produced a miniature slot machine (from somewhere) and had easily occupied Kadaj by letting him pull the lever and watch the flashing lights and listen to the whirrs and whistles that sounded with each successful spin. He started in.

It went step by step, from meeting Aeris and Lucrecia in the dream (explaining who Lucrecia was for Reno, who eagerly broke the flow of storytelling with his first distracting question... though he supposed everyone might need a reminder, Tifa hadn't recognized the name, and Cid hadn't been present when he and Vincent had ducked into the cool dome of that waterfall cave in Nibelheim), to the reasons why Kadaj was not a valid solution for their problem, to what Deepground was. Their faces didn't change much, Reno scoffed a bit, Elena remained comparatively emotionless, Tifa seemed genuinely captivated, and Cid, who would normally have been expected to nod off in the middle somewhere, was still and attentive.

It was worse from here on in. He knew it would be. Disbelief, doubt, it crept over all their faces like the growing shadow of death crept over the land. Deepground, their role in all this, Vincent, Chaos and Omega... Cid clicked his tongue and ground a fist into the dust angrily at that part, mumbling to himself 'Vince... poor Vince, he didn't do a thing, and what'd they do to him...?' Tifa chose to hear what she wanted to hear, and was merely relieved that he was still alive. Relieved for now... Cloud went on: the protomateria, the Ancients, the reincarnations, the primamateria...

"You're so full of shit." Reno finally sneered.

The hush that fell over them then was full of animosity as all heads slowly turned to him. Cloud remained calm. Frankly, he'd been expecting much worse much sooner.

"What?" Cid's voice creaked, daring Reno to go on.

"Oh, come on!" the Turk sat up on his knees, "Look at him, do you really believe this?" he was on an indignant rant now, voice filled with haughty exasperation, "Allright, I may not know as well as most, but I'm fairly sure that you two" he pointed at Tifa and Cid with his index and middle fingers, "are pretty experienced in the realm of Strife's infamous lack of mental stability," Cloud's chin turned down involuntarily, embarrassment, "his _fixation_ with that cadaverous flowergirl, long-term inferiority complex..." hateful aquamarine eyes settled on meek sky blue, "Poor little country-boy couldn't make Soldier and ride back home on a white chocobo to his lady love in Nibelheim. Oh, yes, I know more about you than you know, Infantry Private Cloud M. Strife, I'm a Turk!" Reno jabbed a thumb proudly into his chest while a growing look of naked terror sprouted on the swordsman's face at being so utterly exposed. Reno threw up his hands and went on, "Well, now, apparently taking out the great general Sephiroth wasn't enough for him, now he's gotta be the posterchild of some fantastic being reborn, the ultimate savior of all and everything, the chosen one! What a wonderfully neurotic ego-trip. Here come I, Cloud Strife, all shall love me and despair!"

By this point, the Turk had stood, stretched to take up most space his lean build possibly could, posing like some fanatical tyrant with his hands in the air over his head, and he'd managed to attract a great degree of attention from Kadaj over by the hillside, attention which Cait Sith was desperately trying to grab back by doing more magic, turning his little red cape into a long chain of multicolored scarves.

There was a split second of silence as Reno stood there, and then Tifa was on him in an instant, jumped to her feet with the speed of a lioness protecting her young, aimed a full-fisted, can-crushing punch straight at the side of his head, and her right-hook never failed. Reno fell like a ton of bricks and landed with a sickening crunch on the ground. A little spray of blood - almost cute-looking, like a kid had flicked red paint off a toothbrush into a pleasant pattern - spattered across Tifa's shirt and on the ground in front of Reno's mouth when he landed. As soon as he'd gathered his breath again, he spat out a tooth, and didn't have time for much else before the fighter landed a merciless kick right to his ribcage.

The first blow had taken everyone so by surprise that they hadn't caught her in time to stop the second, but now Elena skirted over to Reno, hauling his bent-up body away across the sand as he groaned in agony. Cid and Cloud each grabbed an arm and wrenched Tifa back, no small task, as she was struggling like a mad thing. "You sick fuck!" she screamed shrilly, and that was another shock, because Tifa _never_ swore. "You have no idea, no idea what he's been through! What he's done for this planet!" she stammered, and Cloud, meekly flattered though he was that Tifa had come so ragingly to his defense, was horrified to find tears welling there in her eyes... and confused. "You'll never know! You'll never even come close to him, or be half the hero he is!" and as her body gave up the fight, straining shoulderblades and wildly kicking legs at last going still, she pulled her head back and spat (with impeccable aim) right in Reno's face before finally tearing her arms from her companions' grip (truly proving how powerless they had been to stop her) and marching away across the emptiness.

What followed was the epitome of stunned silence. Reno was still reeling on the ground, letting out little whimpers of pain and quite possibly drifting in and out of consciousness as Elena tended to him. Cloud and Cid just stood there, arms at their sides, watching after the girl as she left, rooted to the ground. Nanaki made an unsettled sound in his animal throat, like he wanted to follow, but his charge was here with Kadaj, so he stayed...

Cid was the first to move, shifting awkwardly on his feet then glaring at Reno. "Ah, shut the fuck up." he muttered, and made a motion like he would have tossed a cigarette butt at him if he had one. "You know you deserved it. That one's been coming for a long time."

Elena looked up at him harshly through her steaming brown eyes, but there were no words to back up Reno's side of the argument. She knew that her partner had overreacted, even if she agreed with his points. And Cid had already turned away, faced the awestruck Cloud. He broke the swordsman out of his haze with a hand on the shoulder, to which the boy shook his head and looked up.

"Cloud, listen..."

And his heart sank as a flood of newly-released insecurities rose to the surface. Here came the reality check, where Cid told him just how crazy he was, or the long, drawn-out goodbye he wanted so desperately to avoid. But before he began building that wall around himself, steeling up to block out whatever was about to be said, he managed to get a good glimpse at the pilot's face, and that set him off his guard. Honest as ever, there was, almost surprisingly, not one flicker of doubt in Cid's washed blue eyes. There was even a kind of proud determination displayed somewhere in the line of his lips, which looked strangely deflated and empty without a cigarette poking out of them. He was silent, and did as he was told, listened.

"...Tifa cares alot about you."

He didn't need to be told that... but again, all wasn't as it seemed. The meaning of the sentence wasn't in the simple fact it relayed, but in the emphasis of the syllables, the way he was saying it. Like the spear he used in battle, those well-placed words cracked through every shell right into the muck of Cloud's heart, and at last he understood. What Cid had meant to say was 'Tifa loves you'.

"And..." he continued at his very deliberate pace, taking ample pauses, "...you're just about breaking her heart going off like this. But we know you have to do it." And now, the lack of pause, the swift progression from fact to fact and that unfaltering faith... it tore at his gut a little. Here at the end, he realized that perhaps he'd taken Cid for granted, not seen in him all that he really was... would never get the chance to now. That loyalty was amazing. "Talk to her." he ordered, the leader again now as Cloud was about to split off, "You're a good kid. You'll do the right thing." And that assurance was all he needed to build back up the pillar of purpose Reno had so effectively brought down with his wreckingball of a speech.

"Go." Cid said, shaking him, he glanced over his shoulder at the two Turks, then leaned in almost secretively, his whispers urgent, "And whatever you've gotta say, say it fast, and don't come back."

Cloud nodded, a simple, almost military recognition, and turned stiffly, starting off through the dark.

Cid stood there, his hands on his hips, proud, and watched the boy retreat. It was a noble thing, a strange newness in the way he walked. Something was about to happen for the good. He'd never been much into the idea of auras and intuitive feelings, but there was one now... the scent of change on the wind, which was still just as hot and dry as it had been an hour ago, yet somehow _different_, inexplicably so, and that fact alone meant it was real.

-

Tifa was sitting at the top of the cliff again and a little ways away, so as not to be directly over or even in plain sight of the rest of the group. Her form was slumped inside the too-large-for-her pilot's jacket she wore, and she was curled up inside its fleecy folds graciously, doing her best to keep her tears at bay and off its leather and her own unruly hair. She was caught up in this process, smearing them all over her gloves, and thoroughly preoccupied, when Cloud plopped down on the precipice next to her.

She jumped in surprise, and stifled another sob when she saw him, turning away and pressing the palms of her hands to her eyes. "I-I'm sorry..." she sniffled, "...I..." but the look on Cloud's face had caught her, and she put aside shame and modesty in favor of getting one last look, turning her red, puffy cheeks and squinted, shining eyes up once more to stare at him. He was... smiling. "What...?"

"I'm not going to say anything." he announced, almost amused.

Cloud was a new man. That much she'd almost decided, but... no. No, he wasn't. He was not anyone new... he was the old, old Cloud. He was more Cloud in this moment than he had been in seven years, and though those years were spent apart, she could sense it. "You're not..." she repeated, and he shook his head, blonde spikes waving slightly in the wind.

"Not a thing." he finished up.

Tifa sat there, astonished, the frenzied color slowly draining back out of her aggravated face, its color returning to normal. She snuck a laugh, and stopped just as he pulled an arm around her shoulders. It was warm and wiry-strong, and held her close to his side for one brief moment before it went away. With a scuffle, Cloud got to his feet, and she looked up to watch him go. He was taller than her (though he hadn't always been) and now he towered over her, sitting, but it was more than that. He was bigger, and the lingering smile on his lips said it, said everything that he'd already told her he wouldn't.

_'Don't worry.'_

_'Thankyou.'_

_'Everything will be okay.'_

_'I love you.'_

_'Goodbye.'_

She closed her eyes and imagined it, all those words - and it was better imagining it, which was why, she realized, Cloud hadn't said a thing himself, because this way she could hear whatever she wanted him to say - let out a shuddering sigh... and when she opened them again, he was already gone. A moment passed, and she raised up one hand, fingers outstretched to snag at the world in front of her, but they were frozen, and she knew she shouldn't - couldn't pull him back.

-

He would die. And knowing that, everything had seemed more beautiful. Cloud stood in the wind, feeling it hot and coarse on his cheek and was reminded of summer, despite the stench. He thought of Tifa just before he'd gone and not said goodbye - the gleam of her eyes in that peculiar cherrywood color that was hers alone... the curve of her lips, full and pink... the softness of her chocolate hair... the pale, moonlike and ash-marked skin - beautiful. He thought of Cid's words, all that needed to be remembered of him... they had made their impact. He thought of Nanaki, watching him walk off regally, truly a king in his own right - that vivid scarlet against the color-drained landscape... his single sharp eye like a gold gil... the square set of his animalian jaw, resigned to this conclusion... the wise, owl-like posture he'd adopted on the crest of that hill. He even looked down at this ground where he stood, two feet in a wide bed of sand surrounded by a rim of rock, like the railings of a cradle, and even it was beautiful. This was where Zack had died.

_"Hey there Spike."_

The voice was like icing on a cake, and far too much to believe. Cloud felt something nervous and quaking grab onto his throat as he turned around. A strange and familiar shape was materializing there before him, in a flurry of featherlike glints of green as the lifestream came swirling up out of the earth. It almost made him cry.

"Zack..."

The fully-formed figure grinned, his usual sly, young grin, utterly untainted by any sorrow or pain, though he had endured more than his fair share of both in his short and halted lifetime. "_You got it. Long time no see, darling."_ he joked.

The blonde choked as he tried to laugh and shook his head, forcing tears away, "Odin's name, I never thought I'd see you again. Never." he emphasized, looking down, overcome, at the ground into which his sword was buried. It had been Zack's once... and he barely had the strength to lift it anymore, and so there it lay, Zack's again, his only gravemarker.

_"Yeah, well... here I am. Though I do admit it's a bit of a special occasion."_ the Soldier said, looking out on the ruined horizon, dark shells of what had once been proud and famous buildings looming up into the smog.

Cloud snorted. Special occasion was one way to put it... but he figured as much. No spirit, it seemed, returned for just any reason. Here was Zack, _Zack_, possibly the one person with whom he had more history with and loose ends to tie up than even Aeris, and again, there would be no deep confessions or revelations between them, just... business. "Then..." he began, voice flat with crushed hope. "Why are you here?"

Zack turned a sparkling eye on his old friend, grinned again, and said _"To walk you home."_

--

**Author's Ending Note Thingy:** Well, it feels damn good to update! I'm happy to announce that I've finished playing Crisis Core, and though there were alot of tears shed from beginning to end, I didn't actually pluck out any of its plot out to add to this. That makes me really glad... that what I have here is a complete story that doesn't need anything else. I got bits of inspiration, things you'll probably see... but no major fic-altering changes. Woohoo!

Also, if my next update takes too long, please check out Guardian1's 'But That Was In Another Country', for a fic with a similar feel, though I swear I started writing this long before I discovered her story existed. It's a phenomenally written Kingdom Hearts fic centered around our FF7 guys (you don't need to know KH to read it, I don't), and I owe much of my motivation to actually get off my ass and write again to its recent update.

Oh, P.S., and last thing, I swear... how's the chapter length this time?


	13. Ch 13

**Author's Beginning Note Thingy:** Whoo, another chapter down! But here's my major malfunction: let's see some reviews here, people! I don't mean to beg for them in that obnoxious way, but... I'm on 13 chapters here and I haven't hit 50 reviews. Some fics have broken 100 by now. Don't worry if you don't have anything to say, it's just nice to know you read.

So, in response to this lack of response, I've decided that to motivate you all with REVIEW INCENTIVES! These come in the form of pretty pictures drawn by yours truly! They'll be renditions of scenes from this fic, which you know you want to see as more than just words on a webpage. How do you go about doing that? Simple - leave a review, say anything, I'll reply to you with a link to the picture! Sound good? Keep it in mind while you read! And enjoy this installment...

--

"Where is Niisan going?" Kadaj whimpered, his pale green eyes set on the fog of dark into which he realized his brother had just disappeared. It had been at least half an hour since then, by his debatable reasoning of time, and the boy had pulled his knees up close to his chest, hugging them, waiting in hopeful anticipation of Cloud's return, but it didn't look like it would be coming anytime soon.

"Hush, little one." Nanaki murmured hoarsely, nudging the boy with his shoulder lightly. The less he knew, the better. He'd heard all of Cloud's plan, yes, but there had been one slight flaw in it... what would they do with Kadaj in the aftermath? He was still an avatar of Sephiroth, still a holdout of Jenova, so what would happen to him?

The beast had been as skeptical as the rest when first meeting him, but now he understood (though he knew not completely) Cloud's almost instant familial bond. Kadaj had a strange quality about him... he _grew_ on you. Logical and objective as he was, even he felt it, that strange sympathy-derived affection. He realized it was probably just the boy's nature - young, ignorant, naive... nothing more than a tool to anyone, even Jenova. No-one deserved that. It made him feel protective, made him feel pity...

...it was a wonderful survival mechanism.

He smelled the scent on the wind before she even arrived, his keen animalian senses tuning into every subtlety... dominated by the musk of human hair, it was just the faintest whiff of rosepetals and the oceany salt of tears. Nanaki looked up when Tifa came to view out of the dark. The look in his single sulfuric eye was easy to read, even between species, and as soon as Tifa caught it she faked a smile and softly shook her head.

With a bit of a whimper, the firetailed beast folded his paws over eachother on the ground and lay down his head. So Cloud was gone for good, then.

"Will Cloud be back?" Kadaj asked again, softer. Nanaki gave no answer.

"Looky here!" Cait Sith urged, jumping into the silent gap with raised paws. "I'll do another trick!" it was a lame ploy for stealing the boy's attention, but he leapt onto his lap and pulled a gil coin out from behind his ear.

Kadaj smiled faintly and took it, turning it over in his gloved hands and eyeing the raised profile of the former ShinRa president with something like a look of familiarity. Perched atop his raised knees, the little cat sighed and watched. Good that this had also managed to distract him... after this, his tricks went into relapse.

-

This progress was absolutely unacceptable.

There had been no progress.

Nero sat perched atop a large vat of g-substance, nearly half-empty with the way Vincent's system had been sucking it down. Were the situation any less grave, he would have been fascinated by the man's capacity to take it in and yet remain so utterly unaffected. Sure, he was soundly unconscious by the treatment, probably didn't even know which planet he was on, but he displayed absolutely no effects of poisoning, no injury or mutation, no overflow, nothing.

And nothing was exactly what he _didn't_ want!

Nero launched himself down off his parapet and landed on the ground with a thud and the screech of his blade-edged wings cutting across metal. The Tsviet's knowledge of science easily surpassed that of any other Deepground member, rivaled only by Shelke, who's intelligence was not her own. Yet compared to the professor's vast understanding... He knew enough to accurately carry out the man's orders, but not enough to be sure he wasn't being cheated by him.

Goaded by that growing suspicion and his own fidgety impatience, Nero strode purposefully into the birthing room. Shelke looked up from amid the web of restraints and wires she had been secured in as he entered the hallway, but he did not acknowledge her, instead continuing in silence to the end of the dark tunnel.

Beyond those final doors, which he pushed open with deft assurance, lay the deep pit of almost white-green mako, the purest of the pure, the most refined. It almost hurt his eyes to see that glow, and the entire cavernous room was lit up with it, glinting off the curved glass and metal of individual pods dispersed throughout. On the opposite side of that pool lay his dear brother, limp and cold and awaiting awakening...

...and the longer Chaos slept, the longer his brother would too...

It was agony on his heart to think that Weiss might stay like that forever... still as a statue, slumped in that massive rock throne, unmoving... his mighty purpose unfulfilled... those eyes never to open again. That fearful possibility made him resolute, and his flaming scarlet gaze passed over the room like a hunter scouting prey.

"Professor!" he barked, striding boldly, further in and spinning about. "I know you are here, I can sense your spirit. Show yourself, I have questions!"

There was a pause of Nero's solitary voice fading away in resounding echo off the metallic walls, before another's joined it. There was a faint shimmer of outline before him, but no form appeared.

"What?" it said.

"Why hasn't Chaos awakened yet?" he demanded right off the bad, sounding like a needy child as he spoke.

The other voice scoffed and answered amusedly, "Well, Valentine has always been a stubborn one."

"It is beyond that." Nero snapped, turning slowly in a full circle to try and discover the source of this disembodied voice. He felt the presence, but that was far from a pinpoint. A pinpoint he could threaten...

"I realize." the other mused, "Well, I'm afraid that my experience with this issue has reached its limit. I'll be the first to admit I never followed this line of theory in the first place; it always looked like nonsense to me. I'm appalled as it is to learn that it's even true... but as such, I never committed its details to memory, and can't be of much further help."

The Tsviet made an unhappy face beneath the cover of his muzzle, "Then where do I find someone who _can_ tell me what I need to know?"

"Why don't you ask that little girl you have trussed up in the hallway? If I'm not mistaken, she contains within her some highly specific knowledge, straight from the source."

His expression remained, and Nero snorted, "Shelke has recently become highly uncooperative."

The voice laughed. "How does that matter? The girl is a _device_... she does not have the luxury of deciding not to play along when you can literally plug her in and access her brain like it's a hard drive on a computer."

That was a thought, and though it was unsatisfying, it was something... which at the very least would give him something to do, another alleyway to explore as he waited. Nero sighed and turned around dismissively, starting off for the tunnel again as the presence behind him faded off. However, he halted just before the doorway and glanced back over his shoulder at the nothing behind him. "One more question..." the man announced, "...why are you helping us?"

The voice let out a shattered laugh, "Why?" he repeated, apparently breathless, if spirits could be breathless, then broke into that hideous laughter again, "Because Jenova failed to deliver what I desired, because that man in the next room and all his pathetic companions deserve to feel what failure is like, because the death of this planet is long overdue... I consider it a mercy killing."

ShinRa's cruel experimentations had taught Nero all about sadism... and this man must have been the true definition of it. He didn't need to see his face, he heard it in his voice - the smile, the joy, the manic sense of pleasure... it sickened him. It was the same unchained desire that Rosso always had in her voice, the out-of-control wildness in all her movements that made her the raging whirlwind of blood and blades in combat, and he'd always despised her for it. She knew nothing else, after all. Good that she was dead (he should really thank meteor, or Sephiroth, or whatever was the cause of that miracle for it), pity about Azul, though.

"Now, go, boy." the voice said, laughter dying down. "Time runs short."

Nero did not need second telling to quit the man's presence. He choked on his words as he left, saying, "Thank you professor... I shall update you if there are any new developments in his condition."

The doors opened, the doors slammed closed, and there he was in the dark again with Shelke, no blinding heavenly light of Omega's birthing pool, just the cool murky taint of her own g-substance tank, the pale of her eyes as she looked up at him.

"I need your help, Shelke." he said through gritted teeth. Oh, there was shame in that admission.

"I will gladly assist in any manner possible." Shelke answered calmly, blinking, "But first if you would take me down-"

"That's not an option." Nero barked. "Perhaps it will be, if you can give me the information I need, but for now, you can be perfectly useful staying put."

The girl was silent, her stare faintly challenging as she blinked again and waited for him to go on.

"I need specific information from the files we uploaded into you shortly before the crash. Do you remember?"

Shelke sighed heavily and glared, "I have told you... when meteor struck the planet, I was conducting an SND within it at the time. The impact forced me out without a proper disconnection... I believe that caused a powersurge that damaged my interface. It is not that I am unwilling to help you, it is that I simply can't. I cannot access the foreign data within my own mind."

Nero didn't think he could have possibly gotten any more disgusted with her. "Fine." he sneered, closing in on her, "If you are unwilling to help, or unable, I will draw the information from you like poison from a wound." he reached out, taking her chin between his thumb and his forefinger and turning her head slightly to the side. She kept her eyes locked steady on his face, twilight blue pulsing with the orange flare of sunset around the edge. "Even if it breaks your sanity, I will hack into your mind and pull it out." he let her go and backed off.

He would need equipment. Needles, wires, a computer of some sort... he had all those things, it was just a matter of bringing them here. The man straightened up, glad to have a plan again, even if it set him one step back from his goal... he would reach it, that was not a question. "I will return." he announced, "Shortly." and spun, making for the opposite door leading back into the complex. It opened, sending a beam of harsh yellow fluorescent down the long hallway, then closing with a slam and a swallow of darkness...

...save for the figure that appeared before her.

"You're back." Shelke said to it darkly.

_"I am."_ answered the woman, her voice gentle, _"It won't be long now,"_ she repeated, that damned phrase, one of only a few she appeared to be capable of saying, _"I promise. He's on his way here as I speak. It will all be over soon..."_

"What are you _talking_ about?" the confused girl demanded, "Why are you appearing to me? How?"

The apparition saw no need to answer, but sighed, _"We - the planet, all of us - owe you a great debt, Sigyn."_ she said, flickering.

"What did you just call me?"

The hideous light burst in again, and she was gone, replaced by the shadowed silhouette of Nero walking forward. His arms were laden with sinister devices which he set down at Shelke's feet. The man scanned her briefly, as if checking to make sure her restraints were holding, then sat down and peered into the hazy glow of the computerscreen. "Allright." he breathed, "Where to begin?"

-

He was torn. Cloud knew he had to move, to act fast... but every step he took that brought him closer to Midgar also brought him closer to the moment when he and Zack would once again be forced to part. So his stride was sluggish, something he tried to pass off in his mind as due to the increasing intensity of the heat and wind closer to the city, and the new lack of mako energy coursing through his veins.

Even in his old friend's presence, he was stricken silent... with so many things he had to say, all the words smashed against the back of his mouth and got stuck there, no one phrase yielding to let another go by.

_"Never did get to bring you all the way back to Midgar..."_ Zack mentioned apologetically.

He shook his head.

_"Well... this wasn't quite how I planned to do it... but better late than never, I suppose."_ he looked over at Cloud, who stared straight ahead, the expression on his face bleak and heavy with inevitability. He nodded again.

Zack sighed, _"I'm... glad to be with you now."_

...no response.

The shivering silence strung out behind them like a banner in the wind. Zack began to hum idly to himself, which finally made Cloud glance over. The faint outlines of Zack's feet pedaled across the ground as if he were walking, though he glided evenly beside him without even touching it. There was a familiar cheerfulness in his strangely emerald eyes which carried all the way down through the rest of his green-tinged body, infecting his posture and his smile. It looked like... relief.

He took the awkward moment to break the hush and mention jokingly, "I didn't know that ghosts could sing."

_"Of course we can."_ Zack scoffed, noticeably glad for the start of conversation, lame though it was. _"Don't be ridiculous. Haven't you ever met a ghost before?"_

Cloud snorted, "Not before today..." he thought back on the dream of Aeris and Lucrecia... but no, that wasn't true. What about the day before when he and Kadaj had seen Lucrecia's shredded form back in the mountains, near where Avalanche was probably still camped... and then, even before that, the voice he'd heard. He recognized it now.

"You... spoke to me, didn't you?" he asked suddenly, looking up at Zack with renewed wonder in his eyes.

Zack grinned, _"I knew you'd get it eventually."_ his voice was gentle and proud, _"Sorry I couldn't, like, appear or anything... wasn't quite ready yet, if that makes any sense."_ he finished meekly.

"Yeah, I understand." Cloud muttered in response. He walked along, watching his feet, step after step. They were already deep into the ravaged plains. Down here the terrain was even more disturbed... up in the mountains, rocks had split, become more jagged, but on flat ground, the world was cracked... deep chasms opened up in the soil, leading down into darkness or into eerie green, mako vapors rising up out of the deep and fading into the air. Occasionally he caught the glimmer of what he thought was another moving shape, another person... but by the time he looked, it was always gone.

Zack was beginning to hum again, so for his friend's sake, Cloud spoke once more, "...did you ever get to meet Aeris again?"

To this, the spirit laughed slightly, though there was no mirth in the sound... _"Ah... no... not yet."_ he breathed, and Cloud couldn't think of something more horrible. To come so far for the one he loved, who had joined him in death, and not see her...

So he asked, shocked, "Why not?"

_"...she's been busy…"_ Zack answered. _"…as you may know. And I've been following you."_ at the look of slight worry on Cloud's face he laughed again, cheerful once more, and assured, _"Don't worry, kiddo, not EVERYWHERE..."_ and smirked.

And he found himself smiling again, Cloud, which was an odd thing – to be smiling now. In fact, he'd been doing alot of that today. There had been alot of relief today... from multiple venues - seeing Aeris, finally putting things with Tifa to rest, knowing the true purpose of his life... and alot of smiling because of it. Or was it the other way around? Today was... a good day. The best he'd had in years. Would there have been other days as good in that time if he'd only let himself smile more? Too late to tell, he would never know.

_"But you've sure made a name for yourself in no time."_ Zack muttered, looking down at the boy, _"Didn't I always tell you you'd amount to something? That you had big things coming for you? And you never believed me."_ he crossed his arms over his chest smugly and walked along.

Cloud snickered lightly and looked at the ground, "I'm a... really different person now from the one you used to know..." he muttered.

_"No."_ Zack instantly challenged, _"Not really. Like it or not, you've only aged about a year since I pulled you out of that mako capsule in Nibelheim. Yeah, you've seen alot... but you saw it all while you were impersonating me, which, by the way, you did a really sucky job at, thanks."_

Head turned down, he 'hmm'ed sheepishly and ran a hand through his ash-coated hair, which had been stained almost to match the charcoal color Zack wore in life, "Sorry about that..."

_"No worries."_ the other answered, _"When I told you to live for the both of us, I didn't know you were gonna take it so literally."_

"I'm sorry, Zack." he found himself saying, the first breach in the dam of tangled thoughts that were straining to get out, and it seemed to catch the other man a little off-guard, as his eyes went a wide for a moment, and he stopped. Cloud stopped too, grateful to suspend the movement. "I'm sorry you died, I'm sorry I couldn't do anything..." in truth, his memory of those terrifying minutes on the cliff was _still_ incredibly vague... though that was probably for the better...

Now, he wanted to reach out, reach out and grab ahold of Zack, but he couldn't... he knew his hand would pass right through. The man he spoke to was already immaterial enough to make this seem unreal, he didn't need the shattered hope that would come from trying to reach for him and being unable to feel a thing.

_"Woah, woah, woah, Spike, where's this all coming from?"_ Zack held his hands up and tried to catch his friend's eye worriedly.

Cloud stubbornly kept his gaze pointed down, at the buckling earth beneath his feet. "Zack..." he started, at the brink of choking up while forcing out the words. They began to flow more freely now, and he continued, "I'm sorry you had to take me with you, I know I only slowed you down... I'm sorry I always screwed things up back at ShinRa, and that you had to ride in on a white horse and save my ass over and over, I'msorryIcouldn'tstopSephiroth, I'msorryIdidn'tsaveAeris..." faster and faster...

_"Allright, just STOP!"_ Zack yelled, _yelled_, mind you, and Zack never yelled. Cloud froze like a kid caught with his hand in a cookie-jar - the same way, it seemed, he always acted around Zack, reverted to something juvenile - and looked up. _"I didn't come all the way back from beyond the grave at the end of the world so that you could blather all kinds of useless apologies at me."_ he almost sounded truly angry... but in his voice was detectable humor, and he shook his head, began to smile, _"We're friends, right?"_ a sigh, _"I can say this 'til the planet crumbles, but it's in the past... all of it, it's over with... and nothing's the least bit your fault. But I know you're never going to believe me, even though I'm always right."_

Cloud smirked a little in return and pushed off his long list of 'Things that Needed to be Said', swallowing them back down. "No." he said, "I never am."

They started walking again.

And he thought, as Zack began to yammer on (the way things had always broken down - Cloud talked, Zack told him he was stupid, Cloud grew silent, and Zack carried the conversation all by himself for the rest of the time), reasoning things out, like _'Aeris is doing alot of good where she is now, plus I get to see her again when it's all over...'_ and _'...if I'd been enough of an asshole to leave my best friend behind to get experimented on, then who would we have as our trump card to save the world now?_, that perhaps it was better not saying anything. Leaving things the way he'd left them with Tifa. After all... if everything went right, there would be plenty of time to talk life over in eternity.

Midgar loomed. They had, at last, reached its black gates. Who knew how many hours had passed in the walking, but now the wasteland was behind, and the dark and molten ruin that was once a shining kingdom lay ahead, taunting.

_"...well, this is where I leave you..."_ Zack said somberly, turning to Cloud, who was already looking at him.

"I know."

_"You gonna be okay in there on your own?"_ he looked him in the face, glad to see that the other was staring straight back this time.

"I'll have to be." Cloud responded.

_"Oh, come on..."_ Zack pulled back slightly, eyeing him, _"...that's not very reassuring."_

He smiled, "I'll be fine."

_"Good."_ and Zack turned his ear to the wind as if he heard something calling him. There was nothing out there but the deafening howl of the furious gales as they reamed over the surface of the crater... but maybe that's what he heard. _"I've gotta go..."_ he finally said.

"I know you do..." and his confident gaze was beginning to falter...

Zack clicked his tongue and shook his head, _"Hey, head up, Spike..."_ he said, _"...you're almost through."_ A faint hand reached out, hooking just a single finger under Cloud's chin and tilting it up...

He went immediately stiff at the contact, at the _feel_ more than at the fact that contact had been made... it was like electric, and cold. He felt a current Of icewater engulfing him from the inside, but looked up to see warm eyes and a matching smile.

From the bottom up, Zack dissipated, lasting only long enough to lean forward and press a scarce kiss to Cloud's forehead before he went away, and left only open air where he had just been and the faint echo of his voice saying _"Don't be afraid. We're heroes... heroes live forever, one way or another."_

And the light faded all around him, and there was only the ambient flicker of green rivers beneath the earth to guide his way. Cloud paused before the hellish silhouette that rose before him, gathering himself together, tearing himself apart, putting certain pieces away and calling others forward to the line. When he was prepared, he took his first step forward in through what was once the Sector 5 gate, and started down.

--

**Author's Ending Note Thingy: **Don't forget to leave a review to receive a link to this chapter's REVIEW INCENTIVE!


	14. Ch 14

**Author's Beginning Note Thingy:** HOLY SHIT IT'S AN UPDATE! Yes, I am still writing... still plodding along through this thing... and there's a new review incentive going up on DA momentarily (read: within the next few days). And now... to express my deep, deep shame: I'm sorry... I'm very, very sorry this took so freaking long... I'm sorry to anyone who's out there still reading, and I'm sorry to myself for being so incredibly lame. And now that we're done with that, allow me to offer some explanation for this horrible delay. I've been through five harddrives on two computers since I got to college, lost all my stuff at least a dozen times over between drives, machines, and just plain reformats. A word of advice to those who would listen: never, I mean never, ever ever ever ever get a Dell. They have wonderful 24-hour tech support (brought to you live from India, which means if you want the guys who are fresh and awake and don't want to wait on hold for like 40 minutes, you have to call at 3AM), but I doubt they'd need it if their product didn't such so much. The problem should be fixed for good now (I'm crossing my fingers... no problems since April!). So that's my lame excuse. On with the chapter.

---

"Don't you think you're being a little harsh, Reno?" Elena muttered.

"Hell no." Reno shook his head, "For all that ShinRa _may_ have been draining the planet dry, at least that was a slow, predictable, and in the future probably preventable death. What we were doing was right - protecting Midgar, its citizenry from crazed environmentalist terrorists was right." he insisted.

"Old news." Elena rolled her eyes, glaring at him, "Avalanche aren't just an adolescent group of reactor bombers anymore..."

Reno scoffed, "Only in the sense that bombing reactors isn't what they _do_ anymore... in fact, what they _did_ was way worse! We gave them an inch, Elena, in a dire time ShinRa came up dry for ideas, turned to them out of desperation... decided 'well, if they say they can save us all, let them try... either it'll work, or we'll be rid of one more nuisance'. They took that inch and ran with it, fucked up royally, and look where we are now! No ShinRa, no Midgar, hardly even any Avalanche left anymore! You honestly think that that load of planet-hugging bullshit we got spat at us will really work?" he demanded frantically.

"You seem really up in arms about this." Elena raised an eyebrow with pointed curiosity.

"Of course I am!" Reno was outraged, "I don't want to die!" then he stopped, almost like a hiccup in his words, and swallowed them down, fighting to regain his composure... though that one brief show of weakness had softened Elena somewhat, sympathized her a little more.

"So, then..." she started, casting a wary glance off at the small gathering of Avalanche members huddled near eachother to the side. "...what are we supposed to do?" she asked.

Reno sighed and ran his hands over his somewhat flattened hair, "I don't know... flying under Avalanche's radar with this one is gonna be hard..."

"Especially since you weren't exactly tactful with telling them how you felt about their plan." Elena pointed out. Reno glared at her.

"And that cat might have helped us before, but now..." he eyed Cait Sith, whose routine seemed to be slowing up a bit as Kadaj's attention began to wander. He may have been a child, alone and abandoned by his mother (who they could only assume had been, in all other forms, wiped from the face of the earth, as the boy showed no signs of hearing mysterious voices or receiving orders from a higher power as Cloud and Sephiroth each had done), but he was no doddering infant, and the predictable sleight had begun to bore him. Also, he noted, aside from the robot and Kadaj, the rest of the group had gathered close together and seemed to be talking as animatedly to eachother as he and Elena were amongst themselves... there was nothing to be done about that, though, and Reno sighed, getting back to the point, "...well, I don't know. He did alot of good work for us before, but Reeve's loyalty did get a bit... squiffy in the end."

Elena didn't bother to question his word usage, but instead nodded in agreement to the concept her partner had meant to represent. "So you're thinking that this thing, despite its independent programming, might follow its dead master's bias and side with them?"

"You make it sound complicated, Elena." the redhead rolled his eyes, "And not to mention sentient. The bare bones of it is that Reeve never told us he made more than one of those in the first place. Just the fact that we found it at all, or it found us, rather, while doing spywork on a division of the company we'd never heard of in a part of Midgar we never knew existed is reason enough not to trust him. Not to mention the fact that, let's face it, he's a _robotic cat_."

"I don't see how that last fact has any effect on your suspicion, but okay." Elena shrugged, "I see your point."

The sudden tromping of heavy footsteps across the ground alerted them of the coming intruder, and their speech was clipped off, both Turks abruptly straightening up and trying to make it look as if they had not just been bent over scheming together, heads whipping around in mock-surprise of the arrival of the would-be eavesdropper. Both of them had in their light eyes the look a crumb-faced child standing too close to a cookie-jar might wear - pure innocence, the wrong they'd done unprovable but no less obvious.

Cid stood between them and a few paces away, his gruff face sagging into a bit of a scowl as he looked them over, hands on his hips, booted feet shoulder-width apart in an almost defensive stance. "Alright, you two, here's the plan we've come up with." he announced. "We're gonna stay here for a night, all get just one last big rest, and in the morning... no, fuck that, it's not like you can even tell the difference anymore..." be self corrected, cleared his throat, then tried again, "...when we all wake up, we're hauling ass as fast as we can back out of here." he said.

"We talked about what Cloud said, Midgar being ground-zero for what's about to happen... gathering all the lifestream into one spot and then releasing it all it once sounds suspiciously like an explosion to all of us. If you think of the damage a single blown-up mako reactor could do..." Reno and Elena sent eachother knowing looks between Cid's words. "...take that and magnify it by all the mako left on the planet as it goes charging back into the earth and that's what we might be looking at to happen..." he turned and pointed to the dark blot out on the horizon, "...right over there. And we're still in sight of the thing."

The next part of his speech was a little darker (if that was possible) and his voice fell, "There's nothing more we can do for Cloud now... he's got to take this last leg all on his own, and he won't be coming back so there's no point in sticking around to wait for him. At the same time, there's no way to know how long he'll take, or even if he's succeeded or failed until the final result actually comes around, and in that case from here we'd probably be too close to tell the difference. So basically, we're going to try to get as far the hell away from here as we can get in what time we have, unless you find something particularly appealing about glowing green for the rest of your life, or even having any life to glow green for the rest of."

Here he paused, and after only a few moments of nonaction, the two quickly nodded their understanding. To that, Cid gave an almost military-like head-jerk downward. "Alright." he said, sounding like an appeased parent, "Glad to see you've finally come to your senses about this." he muttered, turning around and starting back off, tossing a few last words back over his shoulder as he went, "For as much as we both tried to off eachother before, now I think it'd be an awful shame if you died."

Elena and Reno stayed silent where they were for a few minutes, watching as Cid returned and the rest of Avalanche began to bed down. He'd made some compelling points... like the fact that even if they got Kadaj to Midgar, they would most likely die in the ensuing blast. Still, though... they looked at eachother silently after that. If between them there existed only a bare ounce of altruism, now was the time for it to take effect. What more noble last act could the Turks and, more generally, ShinRa do to redeem their name in the eyes of the planet than to save it from Avalanche's greatest folly?

It was a few moments before Reno began to speak, "I think that, whatever we do, we have to do it tonight." he said, "There's precious little time, and we can't afford to waste it on subtleties like gaining back those guys' trust or convincing the kid. When they wake up, they'll start off full-tilt in the opposite direction and expect us to come along too. We'll never be closer to Midgar than we are now, and even a day's setback is too much to risk..." he looked gravely between Kadaj and the obscured city out on the horizon, "Once they're all out, we gotta take him and run."

"I agree." Elena said grimly. So the plan was still on... she took a deep breath and readied herself - body and mind - all they had to do now was wait.

-

Reno waited, and all the while pretended to sleep. The others over there were curled up at the cliffside, Tifa immersed in Cid's jacket (which she seemed to have permanently commandeered, as the woman rarely went without it now), Cid himself half-draped across his spear, which was propped up against a rock behind him. Nanaki too was taking a break, head on his paws by Tifa and snoring gently. The only one still awake was Cait Sith, the un-sleeping robot that he was, with lamplike eyes peering out to the horizon, and unknown calculations going on within his little computerized sham of a brain. His charge was lightly slumbering beside him, taking wheezy tear-tainted breaths. The time was now, it couldn't possibly get any easier.

Nudging Elena lightly with the un-electrified end of his prod, he roused her from the doze she'd started from the boredom of waiting, and the two of them slowly got up. The cat was relatively inattentive, and distracted, it seemed like... so sneaking up behind him was not an object. It helped that, being a machine, he, unlike any of the others around, had an off-switch, and they both knew exactly where it was.

Mere inches away from him, Reno stopped and motioned his partner forward. She took just a few stealthy steps, uncurled her pointer finger from the fist her hand had made in stress, and reached out...

It was at that moment that Cait turned around, sending a sudden stare at her and freezing her in place. "Elena, Reno..." he noted in a mildly surprised tone, apparently ignorant to the indiscretion they were about to commit, "...what can I do for you?"

"Shh, Cait..." Elena hissed, ever one to remain on civil terms, even with people they were about to backstab, "...you have to be quiet."

The cat looked at her confusedly, "What's wrong?" he questioned, at last an idea seeming to form in his mind... what _were_ the two members of the Turks doing awake when they'd been given the freedom to rest? Why _were_ they both stalking so suspiciously over to the rest of the group together during the time when everybody else was conveniently sleeping.

"Shh..." Elena insisted again, her brow furrowing and a frown forming on her pinkish lips, "...really, Cait, I'm really sorry about this." she didn't know why she was even apologizing to an animal... a non-living animal, no less, and jabbed forward, aiming for the button at the base of his ear...

But Cait was quick, leapt and knocked her hand aside, an appalled expression on his catty face. "Elena, what are you doing?" he demanded, his voice high and quaky. Now he understood the threat... perhaps not completely (though he had a hunch... whatever the Turks were doing, no doubt it was in reaction to their dislike for Avalanche's plan), but he knew it was now putting him, if not everyone else, in imminent danger.

"Oh, for Titan's sake, 'len!" Reno hissed, "Just finish him!"

At the command she stretched again, swiping once more at the button and once more missing as the machine ducked, gasping. "Reno, Elena!" he squeaked, "Stop! I'm on your side!" he waved his little paws frantically, "I found you lost in Deepground, I led you out!" he reminded, "I worked for you the whole way here!" But it was too late, and they didn't believe him... by now any word he said could be a lie, could be self-preservation... at least in Reno's mind. Elena was slowly being un-convinced of her partner's earlier point. Sure they didn't know anything about Deepground, but certainly the higher-ups in ShinRa did, and it was understandable that they might want to deploy a non-human spy from time to time, just to check up on how things were going. So maybe Reeve did, and that's why that Cait Sith was there... she hesitated, drawing back. They didn't need to deactivate him, he could still be incredibly useful in the future!

But before she knew it, Reno acted. He flipped out his nightstick, turning it once or twice around his hand, and lunged forward, sending out a silent bolt of white light. It caught Cait Sith in the leg as he was trying to dodge again, and made the little robot freeze midair. His eyes went wide, then scrunched tight... the toes of his paws started to twitch as the electricity charged through him, blowing circuits and welding joints into place with its force... his entire body began to spasm as if he were having a seizure... and it was sickening to watch. The woman had to turn away.

She was a Turk, of course, and had no qualms about killing people, especially those that deserved it... but animals, on the other hand... Monsters were one thing, and she knew the difference, monsters hurt people... but this was a cute little cat (and she knew it wasn't real, but in a way it was... the moment was not right to get incredibly philosophical about where the border between AI and life was, but she couldn't deny that she'd on occasion thought about it) they were brutally killing, and brutally was the word. She couldn't, at this moment, imagine a more painful death.

It ended soon, though, and the stiff little body fell to the ground with the fur-muffled clanging of broken metal parts. Reno put his weapon away, glaring sideways at her, "Honestly, 'lena... I think you're going soft."

"Shut up, Reno." the woman shrilled in a hiss, still wary about waking up the rest of Avalanche, some of which (Nanaki, in particular, with a shake of the head that sent the forelocks of his mane falling over his empty eye) were beginning to stir, "Tifa was right, you really are a sick fuck." she spat.

Reno narrowed his eyes, but said nothing in protest to this point. Instead he turned away, taking a few steps, and angled his gaze in the direction of Avalanche, whispering. "I get it, 'len, Turks hired me to be a killer and you to be reconnaissance... your job has always been to connect with people, to get inside them without empathizing... well guess what you're starting to do. We're Turks, the only two left..." he started, a bit of hesitance in his voice as he indirectly mentioned their fallen companions, "...we're not supposed to feel..." the words were coming slower now, and failing to attain that hollow resonance of apathy "...we're supposed to be machines... just like that thing." He motioned vaguely in the direction of the busted cat-doll with the tip of his nightstick. A throat-clearing pause later, he straightened and his speech was back to its normal clipped tone as he said "You wake the kid and get him to come along, I'll make sure none of these guys get up."

Elena's breath, which she just realized she'd been holding - stale - since the shock, rushed out in an angry sigh as she stooped toward the silver haired boy. At least the other still had enough sense left to let her handle the 'sensitive' stuff... no doubt if Kadaj woke to Reno's severe eyes he would jump and scream and the whole plan would be worthless.

-

"Kadaj... Kadaj..." from out of swirls of green and black, he felt his body once again... felt the shape of his shoulder being shaken lightly and a feminine familiarity mould itself into being out of the tatters of his dreamworld. Someone was waking him... ushering him back into a world of pain, awaiting him with gentle arms.

"Mother?" he lightly called, eyes fluttering, coming to...

Elena smiled, and it was a horrible, sad smile as the other finally opened his eyes and stared out at her, disappointed in the dark... sad because she knew... she knew how, after all this time of worrying and thinking and trying to plan how she would reason with this unpredictable kid, how she would get him to come with... now she knew, and it was so simple... so horribly, painfully simple.

"No..." she said, "I'm not. But if you come with me..." she stammered, "...come with me right now... you can see her." she baited.

His eyes grew wider, "I can see... mother again?" Kadaj asked.

"Yes." Elena assured, "...come with me and Reno and we'll take you to mother."

And that was it. His mind redirected onto that most important of tracks... he rose obediently off the ground and stood beside her, ignoring his sleeping companions littered all around, unaware of his former entertainer - Cait Sith - forever still in the dust before him. He didn't even flinch as she took his hand and pulled him onwards, after Reno, who led the way down beside a chasm, following its line for light that streamed up from the core of the earth, their only illumination on the trek toward Midgar. The woman tried hard not to cry over her cruel deception... over the fact that it had condemned him... and how quickly it had come to her lips... that even in times this dark, within the Turks there was not one shred of decency to be found.


End file.
